Highway of Diamonds
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: Clint and Natasha are deployed to investigate a secretive cult, and find things they didn't expect, including about themselves. Mission fic; pre-movie. Note change in rating; please heed trigger warnings (inside).
1. Part 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This story is based on a prompt in **be_compromised**'s Valentine's Day Promptathon. **Anuna81** provided this evocative line: _"That is the problem with people today. They've lost faith, and in that loss they don't know who they should fear any more." _But I couldn't get the Valentine's angle, like, _at all_, and almost abandoned the thing. Except … that line kept niggling at my brain.

Now of course Valentine's is long past and irrelevant, and I was listening to Dylan when suddenly the creative process kicked in again. Isn't it amazing what a change in title can do? (Of course using Dylan for inspiration isn't new - see Framling's stunning _Hard Rain Tesserae_; Workerbee73 & Bob5Fic's _The Equilibrists_; or even my own ST: Voyager story, _The Andorian Incident_. The man should have his own tag, honestly.)

**Trigger warning:** There are themes of sexual exploitation - nothing graphic though, I can't read about that sort of thing myself, let alone write it. But I have been told one scene in Chapter 3 is disturbing to some readers. More specific warnings in that chapter.

Disclaimers: This story is not intended as a comment on the inherent nature or merit of religious belief of any kind. The cover icon is by the ever-generous **LadyMorgan**. Finally, I own nothing relating to the Avengers, although my comics collection has now grown to five, which is starting to worry me a little.

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**HIGHWAY OF DIAMONDS**

**By Alpha Flyer**

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**Part I**

_**1. Sound of a Thunder**_

Coulson watches them enter side by side, as has become their habit. Twenty-six missions, and regardless of where on the helicarrier they may have started out, the members of Strike Team Delta get to the briefing room at the same time. He isn't sure whether it's uncanny coincidence, a game of punctuality one-upmanship, or the oddest manifestation of telepathy he's ever heard of – but he _is_ glad that the door is wide enough to admit them both; the thought of Barton pulling the gentlemanly stunt of letting Romanoff go in first is as hilarious as the outcome would be ugly.

After twenty-six missions, Phil also knows what will happen next: Romanoff will pull out a chair and sit down without any noise whatsoever, not even the scrape of a chair leg on the metal floor as she glides into the seat. Barton will either sit down and kick back his chair so far that it's balanced on two legs (it will be one if he gets bored), or he'll grab the chair, turn it around and straddle it, elbows on the back as he laser-eyes everyone around the table.

Today is a straddle-and-glare day. He must have read the heading on the first slide of the power point as they walked in, and doesn't wait for an introduction.

"The _Prophet_? Our target is a prophet? Are you fucking serious?"

The archer's voice, which can sound like crunching gravel at the best of times, is laced with contempt and dipped in acid.

"That's what he calls himself. Or what his followers call him. His real name is Jacob Malone."

Hill hates being pre-empted but Coulson jumps in before she can get a scowl on. His patient explanation isn't helping though; Barton does not take kindly to people who claim an authority he doesn't think they're entitled to.

"Hell, even the Turkmenbashi was too modest to let himself be called 'Prophet', and he had his own bible, named January after himself _and_ had his own _Eau de Cologne_."

Romanoff snorts; like Coulson, she probably remembers that aborted mission in Ashgabat, a city of white marble at the edge of the Karakum desert built to the greater glory of its (now happily deceased) leader, Sapamurat Niyazov The Eternally Great. Their mission to get a dissident out of Turkmenistan had collapsed when the man confessed to his alleged sins on state TV, and disappeared into its dungeons without a trace. The archer's response to that "totalitarian Disneyland with one cartoon character" had been to shoot arrows into the Turkmenbashi's eye socket on every poster visible from the exfil chopper. Clint Barton is not big on personality cults.

"Well, this guy doesn't have a secret police, so he probably needs bigger words to hang on to his flock," Coulson ventures, shooting a look at Hill, who's staying quiet. _Some help here?_

Hill does that thing with her eyes where she makes it clear she is talking to a roomful of morons, which is not helping matters one bit however much her explanation is on the level.

"Malone runs a cult of three or four thousand adherents throughout the US, with a hard core of about five hundred who live on the compound in Montana. He claims to be the conduit for the voice of extra-terrestrial spirits who want to bring true bliss to Earthlings deprived of love. The title comes with the territory."

"Yeah, but what is it with people that they'd _follow_ someone like that?"

The man whose image now appears on the screen looks to be in his early forties, big bushy beard and wild-looking dark eyes. Could use a haircut, too. Romanoff just looks him over, face impassive as usual, while Barton is palpably unimpressed.

He puts his elbows on the back of his chair, supports his chin with both hands and kicks the whole thing forward at roughly a forty-five degree angle as he studies the picture on the screen in the briefing room. Coulson takes note of this new variation on the briefing room balancing act without raising an eyebrow. Barton probably isn't even aware of what he's doing, or else he is deliberately trying to rile his superiors. Luckily, Phil is about six years past being fazed.

"I mean, just look at him. Looks like Charles fucking Manson, the guy does. I mean, come on. He practically _oozes_ nutball serial killer."

"Well, based on what little information we have, that may not be so far off. Which is where you come in, Agents."

Hill's tone is clipped and bland now, strictly just-the-facts, minus the obvious disdain. _Better._

"People, and in particular women, have been disappearing into that part of Montana for four years now, ever since he set up The Loving Church of Galactic Peace."

Barton suppresses a snort at the name, and exchanges glances with Romanov. Phil has worked with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top assets ever since Barton brought the Russian in, and has watched over the last two years as they developed a silent language of their own. It serves them well both in the field and in the briefing room. Romanoff picks up the ball.

"And local law enforcement is where, exactly?"

Hill tries for something approximating sympathy for the plight of fellow agencies; it comes out as contempt.

"Understaffed, overmatched and in no position to go chasing rumours. It doesn't help that the Governor ran on a campaign platform of religious freedom, and that the FBI doesn't want to have another Waco on their hands."

Phil spells it out. "Unless Malone does something overtly illegal or gets caught red-handed in dragging someone off the street who isn't willing to go, there will be no intervention."

"Still, this still seems a little … odd for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get involved," Romanoff insists; Barton nods his silent approval.

Hill gives her a measured look, while Coulson gets ready to ignore Barton's reaction to the explanation that he knows will follow. One of those girls who disappeared on the road to spiritual enlightenment happens to be the niece of a US Senator, who in turn happens to be a college roommate of one of the Council members.

"Ah," Barton says. "Funny, how that works."

Phil doesn't even bother to sound defensive.

"That just gave us the green light. We have an additional interest, though," he says. "We suspect that Malone is using his degree in behavioural psychology to brainwash and train his followers. Why or for what, we're not sure. So we need you to go in and find out what he does and how he does it, before he perfects his technique, or decides to branch out."

Coulson casts a quick glance at Romanoff. She gives no overt reaction to the words _brainwash and train_; motionless and utterly contained, she is a statue to professionalism.

Natasha is the world's most private person, closed off to the point where most of her fellow agents remain convinced that she is an automaton that requires only activation to turn into a killing machine. Phil knows better, and suspects that the absence of expression on her face is not a blank slate, but a full one – like when you combine all the colours of a prism, you get white.

He looks to Barton for confirmation, and while the archer hasn't moved a muscle, his grey-green eyes have shifted and are fixed on his partner. A few seconds pass and Romanoff glances over at him. Phil can't tell for sure, but some sort of unspoken message seems to pass between the two; Romanoff's shoulders relax a little, and Barton's eyes lose their intense stare.

It never ceases to amaze Phil to what extent, after initial growing pains, that particular partnership has evolved into an odd form of symbiosis over the last couple of years. At times, Barton and Romanoff seem in synch to the point of telepathy; other times, they snark at each other with enough firepower to set off sparks. Either way, their yin-and-yang has held them together through some very tough spots, and has yielded results that are second to none in the agency.

Barton has apparently decided to break the slightly awkward silence; he's kicked his chair into the upright position and looks almost interested. Briefings are, after all, there for the assets to get information, ask questions, and seek directions. And if Barton is to dive into the world of Jacob Malone, there are things he will want to know – like an actor, searching for his character's motivation. The archer doesn't like roleplaying much, but when asked to do it, he generally makes it count.

"So what would drive what I presume are ordinary people into the arms of some home-made Messiah? Why don't they see the crazy?"

Phil takes the question, as Barton must have known he would, looking at him the way he does. Unlike Hill, who excels in logistics and cold, hard facts, Phil is the one who can and will talk about _how_ someone thinks, and _why_.

"That's the problem with people today. They've lost faith, and in that loss they don't know whom they should fear any more. And that includes Jacob 'Manson' Malone here. For the truly lost, people like him are the salvation, not the problem. Their highway to the glittering heavens. He has a sizable following on the internet, too. That's actually how we became aware of him."

Barton digests that for a moment, then shakes his head.

"When I need spiritual enlightenment, I go for a hike in the woods, not cruise the web for the latest incarnation of the Messiah."

Romanoff, who apparently has regained her equilibrium (if she ever lost it), raises an eyebrow at that and Barton opts for anticipatory self-defence.

"Well, I _do._ Go out into nature I mean. Central Park, anyway."

Phil retakes the floor before the Black Widow can hit this one over the fence and the meeting derails. The mission is pretty clear and simple, as these things go: _Go in, pose as a couple in search of the Meaning of Life, learn what you can, get out. _

Oh, and … _no killing_: American citizens, constitutional rights, no clear and present danger. At least none that S.H.I.E.L.D. knows of. Strictly an information-gathering op, the kind of thing Romanoff excels at, especially with Barton to have her back.

"Self-defence?"

Barton's voice is neutral and inflection-free, as if he were asking about whether he could have some milk or sugar in his coffee. Both Coulson and Hill know exactly what he is after, though, and the latter answers with an icy glare that neatly conveys the expected displeasure of the Council in the face of an un-mediagenic mess.

"Self-defence, yes. But reasonable and proportionate force only, Agent."

Hill and Coulson play tag team for the rest of the briefing. It's simple enough: Malone's idea of religion focuses on … well, himself, as The One who knows when the heavens will open, and form a portal to a better life on the other side of the Galaxy. Earth's Ambassador to Outer Space, at your service.

Phil is glad of the years he spent perfecting the deadpan look; Barton's resting face is grim intensity, but he can't suppress an incredulous cackle.

"Did you say, _a portal to outer space_?"

He looks to Romanoff, who is back to cool disinterest.

"Christ, what's next? A rift in the Q continuum, leaking omnipotence all over us lesser beings? Reminds me of those idiots in the Nineties, who tried to ride the tail of that comet."

Hill glares at him again – she's never been one for Star Trek trivia - and continues. Malone's disciples appear to be disproportionately female, although some couples have joined; single males have been routinely denied entrance. No one has ever reported seeing anything other than starry-eyed disciples, convinced they were headed for paradise.

"Institutional sexism?"

Coulson shoots Romanoff an amused look. The fact that even a pseudo-prophet in the hinterlands might consider males more of a threat to his security _would_ piss her off on principle. They go through this every year during recruitment season, when Romanoff, Carter and a couple of others spend a delightful few days teaching the new crop of male wannabe-agents the dangers of underestimating women.

"Perhaps. Could also be that in the Prophet just prefers women followers. Read their propaganda materials. Women outnumber men by a rate of five to one in the photos. But none of the men who have apparently gone into the compound with female partners are known to have left the group, or else they haven't said anything to anyone. Nor has there been any contact with relatives on the outside, or even traceable internet use from inside the compound. The only outgoing communication comes from the main website, and that seems to be routed through a number of anonymous re-mailers, with a dead end in the Philippines."

"Typical cult scenario," Hill declares in her flat voice. "Complete solidarity from the inside, few defections, no one talks. Possible suppression of dissent. We don't know. Make sure you don't get yourself kicked out before you can learn anything, Barton, so try and keep your big mouth shut for once."

With the substance of the mission briefing done, Hill pushes the comms button and calls in the ID specialists, there to present Delta Team with their covers for the mission. They do not need to know the parameters of a given mission in order to create solid identities, with records traceable all the way back to kindergarden.

"I just hope I can fake devotion and delusion," Barton mutters when they're done. They arise from the table, new passports in hand - the newly anointed Mr. and Mrs. Paul (Lucy) Edwards from New Jersey.

"Just fake devotion to _me_," Romanoff sighs. "You're my loving, somewhat skeptical, occasionally dense husband, who is doing this for the good of our relationship. Our anniversary is coming up, and you're trying to give me internal peace instead of chocolates and marriage counseling."

"_In_ternal peace? Or _e_ternal peace?" It looks like Barton might want to say more, but Hill closes her file with an audible snap.

"Excellent, agents," she says, with just a little bit of an edge to her voice. "You're already starting to think."

**2. Twelve Misty Mountains**

Black Creek County is not large, as administrative regions go in that part of the country, but it's pretty remote and sparsely populated – it would likely number under 5,000 souls even if you could get everyone to submit to a government census. Its best-known feature is a non-descript lake created in the Fifties by a hydro-electric damming project, heralded as bringing a prosperity that never came. The lake is ringed by mountains that are neither as mind-blowingly beautiful as those found elsewhere in the state, nor suitable for revenue-generating ski runs.

Right now, those mountains are shrouded in mist; low-lying rain clouds give the place a slightly otherworldly quality that does nothing to improve Clint's mood.

_Recreational Opportunities Galore!_ the local chamber of commerce propaganda promises, but that's pretty much a load of bullshit unless you're into ice fishing, which has to be one of the most idiotic sports ever invented (unless you're Canadian and used to freezing your ass off for the better part of the year). In the summer, hunting seems to be it – at least that makes for a good excuse if someone were to find the bow he's stashed away underneath the car.

Clint gives a running commentary on all of this to Natasha, investing all the stuff worth knowing with his own perspective as they are driving on roads still wet from an earlier drizzling rain. Whoever thinks that Hawkeye is the taciturn type has obviously never encountered him in full-on upload mode. Natasha, who is used to the Barton Approach to Digesting Briefing Notes, is half listening and half scanning the landscape for signs of human civilization - or the coming apocalypse, whichever comes first.

"There," she says, stabbing her index finger at the windshield. "_Temple of The Loving Church of Galactic Peace._ At least they're not hiding."

"Can't get charitable status if you don't advertise," Clint grunts, but Natasha notes with approval that he is already schooling his features from cynical resentment into wide-eyed curiosity.

Well, maybe not quite yet.

"Look, honey, we've arrived at Kingdom Come," he purrs as the car drives through a wrought iron gate decorated with moons and stars; she rolls her eyes and smacks him in the arm.

"Behave, Barton. Think Stanislavski. Don't _act_ like Paul - _be_ Paul, filled with anticipation and readiness to be inspired. Cynicism is _so_ Nineties."

To his credit and her surprise, Clint doesn't snark back. Instead, he just nods; she can watch his lips move as he repeats to himself: _Paul Edwards. Paul Edwards. Paul Edwards. _

Natasha is keenly aware that this whole role-playing thing is far more her metier than Clint's; her partner has made it abundantly clear that 'playing pretend' weakens his focus on what he considers more important, such as spotting danger or grabbing a paddle when a mission heads up shit creek_. _She can only hope that immersing himself in a world of unquestioning worship – a world that is anathema to his hard-earned, wary cynicism - won't prove too much of a challenge.

The long road leading into the Divine Compound is essentially dirt, hardened by steady in-and-out traffic, and presently coated with a film of mud thanks to the recent rain. Half a dozen or so cars, vans and pick-ups in varying states of repair are parked in a courtyard in front of the main house. Some of the pick-ups have gun racks in the back; Clint notes that the only thing missing is moose antlers on the hoods and bumper stickers endorsing Sarah Palin.

"Looks like all local folks," Natasha muses, practicing the voice she will be using for Lucy, all breathless excitement with a tinge of _I-was-hoping-for-more_ disappointment. (All Clint has to do is to keep the snark out of his voice, and he'll be a new person in a New York minute.) "Wonder what they're doing here?

"Don't these places usually run vegan restaurants or herbal pantries, or shit like that?"

Clearly, Clint isn't quite in character yet. Natasha/Lucy sighs, and gives her husband a fond but exasperated look.

"I doubt there's much call for that in rural Montana, honey," she chirps at him.

Clint/Paul rolls his eyes but gets the message, and his "You're probably right, sweetie," earns him a peck on the cheek from his loving wife.

Natasha takes a good luck around while Clint removes their bags from the trunk. The prevailing ambience seems to be a blend of rustic logs and corrugated metal; the place sure won't win any awards from _Architectural Digest._ The main concession to the compound's status as a galactic outpost seems to be a number of metal stars that have been hammered into a few strategic locations, and used to top weather vanes on each of the gables. Two wings of what looks like dorms – à la Midwestern motel – go off on either side, and there's a big barn with an extra-big five-pointed star that presumably is the main place of worship, as well as several smaller outbuildings whose use is not immediately apparent.

In the stillness of the late afternoon their approach has not gone unnoticed. They're expected, of course – telephone calls and e-mails announcing the impending arrival of Paul and Lucy Edwards of Albany, NY on their journey towards spiritual bliss had started well before Clint and Natasha had ever heard of their new alter egos.

And, of course, there had been that Western Union transfer of $25,000 from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "contingency fund" (_Bribes'R'Us_, in Clint-speak). Salvation seems to always come with a price tag, especially when promised by a saviour who preaches that Earthly possessions will be a burden in a future where souls will gambol among the stars. Someone has to pay for the candles to put in the window, for when the aliens come to take everyone home.

However the grace of their welcome was achieved, it oozes warmth. Dominated by words like "Brother," "Sister," "true love" and "spiritual path," the blessing spoken as they cross the threshold is laced with references to The Prophet and The Word and The Truth. Both Clint and Natasha's faces start to ache from smiling, a mere two minutes into their new lives.

The first surprise comes when they're shown to separate quarters.

"The desires of the flesh interfere with the True Path," the beatific disciple informs Clint, with just the right note of superciliousness to make him want to staple the guy's ears to the back of his head.

"The Others will not be able to hear us, if we sully our calls to them with base wants."

He can't help himself, he has to ask – but it's such an obvious question that he figures Paul would, too.

"But on the Prophet's website, there's a lot of talking about love, and pleasing. All those pictures of beautiful women …"

The disciple's smile widens.

"Yes, of course. Pleasing the prophet is the keenest desire of our sisters."

_But didn't you just say that desires of the Flesh …_ Clint decides not to argue the point for now; last thing they need, is for him to be kicked out before he's even had the chance to set down his duffle bag. Besides, the guy seems keen to elaborate.

"All our desires are focused on the Prophet, to give him wings and the power to show us the way. The desire of our sisters to please him and him alone, and his acceptance of their offerings, serves to fuel his quest."

Clint nods his understanding and refrains from further questions, lest he betray the mixture of disgust and incredulous amusement the man's words have triggered. Fucking your way to the stars – not a bad job, really, if you can convince someone to give it to you. And, apparently, he'll be expected to give up his 'wife' into the bargain, although so far that part's been left a bit opaque.

Natasha will no doubt be thrilled to hear of her intended role as a steppingstone to Paradise. For a brief moment, Clint considers what she might do if she were asked to 'serve' before their fact-finding mission is at an end, but the sting of his finger nails in the palm of his hand tells him that this isn't a fruitful line of thought and he lets it go – for now. At least he's learned something useful already: a likely cause for the reported small number of single males that make it into the compound. But what about other couples that may have come here?

His quarters consist of a single, windowless room with a narrow bed and a tiny, triangular sink in one corner. It's smaller than his room on the helicarrier and there's no closet, so it's a good thing they'd been encouraged by the literature to _leave worldly goods behind as you enter the Simple Paradise that is The Prophet's Dominion on Earth_. Communal toilets and showers are down the hall. Clint has been in worse accommodations – try sharing a circus car with three other guys – but a picture is already emerging, and he wonders what Natasha's accommodations are like.

Indoctrination 101 is next – two hours that Clint knows he'll never get back, educating the newcomers on The Prophet's path to trans-galactic harmony in excruciating detail. An hour or so is spent on extolling the beauty of The Eternal Female, and the role it (she, whatever) will be playing in the Final Celebration – the vessel for the Prophet's Ascension, and the Key to the Gate. Or something.

Clint casts a look at Natasha across the room; the twitch in her eyebrow that she gives him is almost unnoticeable, but it tells him with all the clarity in the world that _this_ portion of the doctrine will become a fixture of future arguments over the comm. He suppresses a grin and focuses on his devotion.

As far as Clint is concerned the Prophet's Teachings are pretty ludicrous and lacking in anything resembling internal logic, but the two other newcomers, both female, are eating it up. One of them looks like a runaway fresh off the streets, scrawny and with a fading bruise on her cheek that accentuates huge brown eyes; the other is a slightly chubby librarian type with thick glasses, a crocheted twinset, and lines of discontent that have started to carve their mark into an otherwise pretty mouth. Clint has the distinct impression that both of them would consider a trip to outer space in the arms of the Prophet as a vast improvement over a life of silent screams and disappointments. He's been there himself, and worse, and it's not for the first time that he counts his lucky stars that it was Phil Coulson who found him when he was staring down the abyss.

Grace, Clint Barton has learned, can take many forms.

Hawkeye is used to observing, spotting patterns, taking note. And so he doesn't miss the fact that, while Lucy Edwards is being eyed up and down by the "Enlightened" - the small handful of men and women whom he has loosely classified as Malone's Minions – Paul is being treated as little more than a self-propelled piece of furniture.

Now, while Clint is generally quite content to fade into the background, the tea trolley treatment here seems vaguely sinister, as if he wasn't worth the investment of the time or attention that it would take to turn him into a proper disciple. The concern that he might be kicked out as having insufficient promise for salvation is like a weight in his gut, as he looks over at Natasha again. He'd be lying if he claimed that he hadn't been alarmed by the way she had instinctively recoiled, at the mention of possible brainwashing techniques being deployed by Malone's group.

And so it comes almost as a relief when he is told that given Paul Edward's evident fitness, he will be 'invited' to help with the construction of a new outbuilding tomorrow. Hard work of the body, after all, is another path to perpetual bliss, according to the sect's propaganda materials; besides, it keeps the men's minds off the fact that apparently only one of them gets to use that body for other things. Clever, really – but more importantly, it buys a day in which he can remain close to his partner.

The first time they catch a glimpse of Malone is at suppertime in the communal dining area, a neon-lit room with a décor heavy on Formica and wax tablecloths with quaint moon and star patterns. A sudden rapt silence accompanies his entrance but is quickly pierced by a couple of small, hysterical sobs, which in turn are followed by the rhythmic chanting of "Prophet! Prophet!"

Clint and Natasha follow the example presented by the others and join the chant with the appropriate mixture of deference and enthusiasm; the rapt attention everyone lavishes on Malone provides an excellent opportunity to observe the man close up.

The Prophet is not particularly tall, sort of Clint's own height, but without any noticeable musculature under a layer of fat that jiggles a little as he walks. Obviously, the_ cleansing benefits of manual labour _are not something the man feels compelled to indulge in very often, but there is little softness about him in any other respect. There's a calculation in Malone's flinty gaze, even as his mouth smiles beatifically at his flock; it's a look that Clint has seen far too often, usually over the sightlines of his bow.

Maybe Phil is correct, and the lost souls drawn to this place in the mountains have forgotten how to see, forgotten how to fear. But the Hawk is a predator - if not born, then bred - and he knows beyond certainty that he is in the presence of another.

Malone's eyes scan the faithful, arresting on the newcomers, but it is on Natasha that he focuses his gaze. It's hard to tell, but Clint could swear that the man's tongue darts out briefly as he takes in the red hair and shapely form of his partner. She gives no indication that she has noticed anything amiss, but then, Lucy Edwards never would.

_Loving Church my ass_, the archer thinks, as he curves his mouth into a brilliant, vacant smile.


	2. Part 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to **Shenshen1977** and **distel** for test-driving this installment and providing invaluable feedback, and to **Kylen** for allowing me to whinge about it at halftime. You made this (and me) better, and if it isn't, I take full responsibility...

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**Part 2**

**3. She Gave Me A Rainbow**

When she gets back to Headquarters, Natasha plans on making Maria Hill buy her a chai latte somewhere, preferably not inside Headquarters. And then they will sit down to a good, old-fashioned ranting session about the many forms of sexism that are still alive and thriving in North America.

Here, on the threshold of universal peace, what Clint would - with a smirk he'd want his partner to try and wipe off his face at their next sparring session - call _the womenfolk,_ are detailed to nurturing things_,_ whenever they're not studying the Prophet's Word. Chores like gardening (the compound grows much of its own produce), cleaning, and cooking are assigned exclusively to female acolytes, on a rotational basis and apparently completed with a smile and a song, while the _menfolk _get to do gender appropriate things like carpentry and maintenance. No expectations of singing, apparently. If there was livestock, no doubt the men would be wrangling it, to the admiring gazes of the female population.

At least, Natasha considers, the women aren't expected to wear ankle-length, floral print dresses, bonnets and aprons. Quite the contrary, actually. The small pile of salvation-appropriate t-shirts that Natasha found on her cot when she returned from that first dinner are tight, cut rather low, and sparkle with something that is no doubt supposed to represent star dust of some kind. If the Prophet is watching the faithful bending over at their gardening chores (she's donned a sleek cobalt number herself), he'll doubtless enjoy the view.

And unlike Clint – and, as far as she can see, any of the other males - Natasha has to share with four other acolytes. The arrangement bothers her more than she thought it would. The last time she has spent a night this close to other women had been in the Red Room, where every sideways glance was made of suspicion, fear and jealousy, and where every sound you heard in the night was possibly your last. (Natasha Romanoff is a _very_ light sleeper.)

That said, the first night discloses nothing more than a hum of contentment in the whispered conversations flying back and forth, something that would have been utterly alien to the denizens of the Red Room. But whether it is the mere physical proximity of these other women, or the subliminal feeling of a community wrought from … something she can't put her finger on quite yet, Natasha isn't convinced that things are much different here, at the Gates of Peace. Her senses are tingling from an unspoken _other, _even if it does not seem to emanate directly from her Sisters in Love.

It is also pretty clear that the routine in which Natasha finds herself effectively serves to separate her from her putative husband. She can only assume that the "divine pleasures of love" mentioned at all the prayer sessions _ad nauseam_ don't extend to sexual relations between husband and wife. (On a certain level, the fact that she does _not_ have to share a room with her partner for an extended period of time is not unwelcome, but that's a thought she won't examine too closely.)

The separation may be a test of some kind. Loyalty? A bit soon for that, surely.

"Isn't it beautiful today?" one of her roommates interrupts Natasha's thoughts with a happy sigh. The woman's rather unlikely name is Moonlit Ascension; it's clearly not the one she was born with, but equally obvious that asking her what it once had been would be offensive. Truth and reality, in this place, are very much in the eye of the beholder.

'Moonlit' has been assigned to show the newcomer the proper way to tie tomato plants to their stakes, but her mission seems to be wider. Serenity surrounds her like a force field, and she seems determined to draw Natasha into its vortex.

"Such a blessing, this star that is shining upon us provides. Imagine a thousand more like it, when the Prophet opens the gate to the Otherworld."

Natasha considers the SPF factor she would need to protect her pale, Russian skin against the rays of a thousand suns, and shakes her head.

"I can't," she says truthfully, but with such a beatific smile that the young woman sparkles back at her.

"Just wait, Lucy. You are still new to the Prophet's teachings. Your eyes will be opened to such wonders," she breathes before focusing on her work again. She is unconsciously humming a song that Natasha already recognizes, and hopes to be able to exorcise from her ears when the mission is over; it accompanies daily life in the compound as much as the sound of the crickets pervades the night.

Natasha Romanoff has been many different women, has worn many faces in her life. Dim-witted arm candy, high-class call girl, and social climber with razor-sharp nails; singer, dancer, secretary, businesswoman, lawyer and whore; wife, lover, confidante, friend - not to mention survivor, assassin and spy. Here, surrounded by the devout, who and what she needs to be in order to be like her 'sisters in faith' is … different.

Sure, she can radiate contentment with the best of them –has done it often enough hanging off the arm of a major arms dealer or corrupt politician, in the process making them the centre of her universe, herself their shining satellite. She suspects she could do that just as well for Malone, should he ever demonstrate a personal interest in her. But the kind of all-round tranquility and serenity that shines out of the eyes of her fellow acolytes, and the peace they seem to have found with each other, is something else altogether.

Fortunately, Natasha is a quick study and her Sisters are only too keen to share their joy with her, and to teach her what it means to be Truly Happy. They seem uniformly determined to support one another, including the newcomer, and there is a comfort in that which Natasha can almost – but not quite – touch.

If she were to be honest with herself, the community before her leaves her … _wanting_.

A thing that she has yet to resolve in her own mind is the question of whether, and how, she should speak of Clint in this context. None of the others are here with a mate, and if the discussions she has had throughout the day (and the things not said) are any indication, loneliness is a large part of what is drawing these women together now. Surely, she should show interest in her supposed husband's wellbeing, and be seen to be looking for him in the common areas. But might this be seen as a sign of being less than devout to the Prophet – and prevent her from penetrating deeper into the Church, let alone completing the mission?

Clearly, the agents who came here before her had not noticed the absence of couples. And just as clearly, none of them was female; the Council still hasn't read Hill's report about gender parity in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hiring processes and field deployments.

She wipes the sweat off her forehead and straightens for a moment. The sound of hammering carries across the open space and she follows it with her eyes. One of the outbuildings is getting a new roof, and she can see men on top, installing wooden beams. She has no problem spotting Clint's familiar form on the highest point. He's seemingly in his element, driving nails into the wood with a steady rhythm and doubtless uncanny precision. The sound of his hammering carries into the vegetable garden.

He looks down at her across the field now, almost as if he'd felt her eyes on him, and lifts a couple of fingers in salute before returning to his hammering. _Bastard_. He's actually _enjoying_ himself.

Natasha turns to her companion, her eyes hooded, shoulders hunched into confessor mode.

"Emm … Moonlit?" The name comes from her lips with more difficulty than calling an Armenian mobster 'darling.' "Can I ask you something?"

The young woman smiles pleasantly, eyes shining with trust.

"But of course, Lucy. Anything. The Church thrives on questions answered."

Natasha refrains from rolling her eyes – why is it so damn difficult to maintain cover here? (And how is it that Clint hasn't been thrown off that roof yet for blasphemy?)

"How long have you been here?"

"Just over three months," the girl beams into her tomato plant, graceful fingers tying a particularly recalcitrant stem to a stake, careful not to break it. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem so … well versed in the ways of the Prophet. I was wondering how long it would take me to become as good."

Moonlit blushes, trying to hide her pride, and failing.

"I tried," she says shyly. "I tried very hard. I want to go out and spread the word, like the others. Soon, Brother Samuel says. Soon my service here is complete, and I'll be ready."

_The others?_

"Ready for what? And go out where?"

Moonlit burbles a happy giggle.

"The world of course, silly! You really _are_ new. To do the work of the Prophet, so that we may all be prepared for the glory of the Ascent." Her voice drops to a whisper.

"The unenlightened must be given their chance to see the light, and it is our privilege and our duty to show them the way through love and understanding_. Love is the way_."

Natasha nods sagely, and decides to push her luck. This one won't bite, she is sure, but she has to try.

"And before? Before you became enlightened yourself? What did you do?"

A shadow crosses Moonlit's face, ever so briefly, before the sun rises again in her smile.

"I was nothing," she says in a curiously flat voice, before turning her head away. "Nothing at all."

For a moment, Natasha doesn't know how to take the simple statement – was it a rehearsed line, or a deeply felt confession? She searches for cues in the way Moonlit holds her shoulders: are they stooped in pained remembrance of an unappreciated life, or open and free, celebrating the knowledge that she has found who she is?

Natasha Romanoff, she who can read Paradise Lost off a man's facial twitch, is momentarily at a loss, but it is much too early to admit defeat. And so she moves on, gliding from tomato plant to tomato plant like a butterfly, talking to the other women, one by one. _Getting to know my new sisters_ goes a long way as an excuse, and earns her appreciative smiles into the bargain.

By the time Prayers rolls around, she has learned nothing about any one of those women, but everything there is to know about them as a group. They have given her epics written in invisible ink, stanzas made about lives not considered worth recalling. None will speak of themselves, except of what they have found here: peace, contentment, love, light. Sisterhood. But when asked about family, lovers or friends, the silence, accompanied at times by the unconscious touching of old wounds, speaks volumes.

What is real, though, even among the more bizarre assertions of love for the Prophet and general expectations of cosmic peace, is the bond of trust that exists among the women of the Galactic Church as a palpable thing. Friendship and comfort are things the Red Room sought to destroy as soon as the merest tendrils developed, and don't come easily to the Black Widow. After two years in her new life with S.H.I.E.L.D., Clint Barton and Phil Coulson – Maria Hill, to a lesser degree - are the only people she trusts would consider 'friends,' and not to their face.

Friendship creates two targets for the price of one.

Being unreservedly embraced by the women she has met so far is … disconcerting, and it occurs to Natasha that if there is, in fact, a form of brainwashing at work among Malone's flock of the formerly desperate, it is far more insidious than the loneliness, cold and pain she learned as a child.

She looks for Clint at dinner, but all she can do is catch a glimpse of him across the room. He seems to be pretty chummy with some of the other men; they're talking with an animated ease that she finds herself envying. What is it about Clint Barton that despite his usual reserve and his avowed aversion to teamwork, he fits so readily into a group?

Lying awake in her bed at night, her head still ringing with atonal hymns ("the sound of the seven spheres") that would make Stravinsky plug his ears, Natasha reflects and concludes three things.

One, that there is an unexpected pleasure in feeling living branches bend to deft fingers on a summer's day.

Two, that depleted souls are fertile ground in which to plant dreams of love and happiness.

And three, that Lucy and Paul Edwards' marriage cannot be allowed to be a happy one, if she is to be as desperate to embrace a new life as she needs to be.

.

**4. Home in the Valley**

Clint has no trouble at all spotting his partner from the rooftop. Her red hair, lit by the sun, shines like a beacon as she flits around the garden, stopping beside one or the other of the women for minutes at a time. _Serial interrogation_. They won't know what hit 'em, poor buggers.

He envies her this, the effortlessness with which she starts conversations, worms her way into people's confidence and comes out with an encyclopedic knowledge of their lives, from the dates for the next cocaine shipment down to Auntie Em's recipe for tuna casserole.

Clint is observant too, of course – that kind of goes with what they do for a living, he'd be useless if he wasn't. But he prefers to do his thing from a distance, deduce what he needs to know from the Big Picture. Background, patterns, movements, irregularities, absences. You can draw all sorts of conclusions when you start with the things people want you to see, subtract those you should see but don't, and add the stuff that no one ever pays attention to but should.

Natasha and the Gleeful Gardening Girls are obvious, and can therefore be dismissed as background noise. Besides, his partner is on the job down there; whatever is to be gleaned from that part of the picture, she will.

Must be prayer time (again); they're headed for the main chapel. The thing with the big moon and stars. So why haven't he and the other handful of guys on construction details been asked to go?

Come to think of it, what he _doesn't_ see a lot of, is men going into the prayer place. Apart from the ones with starry robes who seem to be in charge. _Malone's Magnificent Minions. _(Alliterations assemble…)

The women, though, are flocking to prayers in shifts. Tasha must _love_ that, especially the constant strands of the music he can hear coming through the windows, like nails on chalkboard, whenever there's a session. She's gotten used to his jazz CDs and even stopped snarking at his Springsteen collection, but _this_? You'd figure people looking for galactic harmony would be more into massage-type music, like that Irish chick, what's her name? Enya.

Clint hammers another round of nails into the wooden skeleton that will, soon, become another roof for yet another outbuilding. Place sure is a growing concern, for the middle of nowhere.

Anyway. _Men_.

There are a number of them around, even if proportionally a lot fewer than there are women. They're just not turning up in the main compound building, not even at lunchtime. Very few of the men he has seen from up here are what he'd call, for lack of a better word, _residents_. There are guys heading in and out of some of those outbuildings though, staying for a couple of hours, coming back out.

And then leaving the compound.

Traffic is pretty steady in and out of that parking lot, which is surprising given that this is pretty much the Middle Of Fucking Nowhere, U.S.A. Where do they all come from, and what the hell are they doing here? Picking up pamphlets?

There's a solid number of Canadian plates, judging by the colours - red letters on white, he can make out from the roof. _Alberta_. Figures; the nearest big town of any description is Calgary. But even that is almost a three-hour drive, and he's never figured the Canadian equivalent of Texas as being a hotbed for religious wing nuts. (Okay, not _that_ kind of religious wing nut, anyway.)

More nails. Time to switch to the staple gun for cleanup work. Cool piece of equipment, the staple gun. Simple, yet satisfying. _Clack. Clack. Clack._

Clint hates to admit it, but the work he's doing is actually kind of … soothing? Out there in the open, wind in his face, no sounds but occasional hammering, sawing. Honest sounds - the echoes of hard work that would yield something tangible at the end of the day.

Apart from learning to shoot and, later, performing as The Amazing Hawkeye (God, that purple suit …), his favourite bits about circus life had always been striking and setting up Carson's Big Top (big being a relative term). Once the elephants – circuses were still allowed elephants, in those days – had pulled up the poles, he'd be up there like a flash, tools on his belt, hooking in the stays that would keep them straight so they could hold up the huge tent. It hadn't taken the wranglers long to figure out that the kid actually _liked_ going up the poles, and pretty soon he had no competition for the job.

Then there was hammering the bleachers together, that was fun too, building things for people. Where he learned those basic carpentry skills that come in handy from time to time, like now. Although that had always been more Barney's domain.

_Barney. _Fuck.

Clint wipes the sweat off his forehead and looks for Natasha again. She's back, been looking up in his direction. Maybe he felt her staring. That a smile, or a glare? (_Damn_, that's a nice shirt she's wearing.)

He wonders what she might be thinking, looking at him up on that roof while she's stuck amid the tomatoes. The mere thought of letting the Black Widow near a plant would send Coulson into anaphylactic shock, after what she did to his plants after that clusterfuck in Kinshasa, when he was in the hospital for two weeks.

Fuck. Not having a target is playing havoc with his ability to focus, it seems.

"Brother Paul," the voice is cheerful, and Clint turns around, almost grateful for the new distraction. "We didn't know you had such a gift for carpentry. Can you help me out over here? I'm kind of stuck."

The problem, as it turns out, is pretty simple, if you know what to look for –improper bracing, thanks to a misreading of the plans. It's all in the angles, something Clint is rather good at. What's needed is some dismantling, reconfiguring and elbow grease, is all. The guy is not a carpenter, that's for sure.

Half an hour later, he finds he actually enjoys working with the hapless handyman. Name's David Starlight (as if). But David, ridiculous pseudo-last-name notwithstanding, is basically a nice guy.

Conversation is easy, just what's needed to get the job done, in between judicious application of the crowbar, hammering and driving the nails past flush with a nail set. A "Hey, hold this for a sec," is followed by a "Toss me the water balance?" and so on.

Guy talk, like he does with Evans when they're discussing exit points before a mission, or with Coulson and Sitwell, when they're doing their hot wash-up over a beer afterwards. It's a matter of minutes before one of them uses the word "torque" – what Natasha terms the male equivalent of the Bechdel test.

_Pass, with flying colours. _Or fail, depending how you look at it.

"So why'd they stick you on barn-raising detail?" Clint asks eventually, when David curses after hitting his thumb with the hammer for the third time. It's a real, solid, Anglo-Saxon curse, not some mealy-mouthed invocation of the Prophet or his cosmic butterflies. (Paul Edwards doesn't swear himself, no sirree, but he doesn't give any indication that he's noticed the other man's slip into mundane behaviour, either.)

David Starlight grins ruefully.

"Taking my turn to do the Prophet's work where He needs me," he says, his voice back to his usual placid tone. "I should be leading prayers this week, but Brother Amos was called away and His Serene Holiness has need of this building. And so I serve, regardless of my obvious shortcomings."

Clint/Paul nods sagely. Of course. Taking a hit for the team, short straws and all that. Boy, can he relate. (Take this mission …)

David's voice turns conspiratorial, like he's about to impart a state secret.

"But I'm content. Carpentry has historically been an important step towards spiritual enlightenment and ascension."

Clint chuckles dutifully at the marvelous joke before falling silent again. The wind has died down, and it's getting hot up on the roof.

"What exactly are we building here?" he asks after another pause filled by hammering and small grunts as they shift a couple of big beams into place. His co-worker wipes the sweat off his forehead and points at one of the smaller outbuildings, one of those that seemed a destination point for some of the visitors.

"Another Centre for Spiritual Growth," he explains. "For the more advanced students."

_Ah. _Not accessible to novices like Lucy and Paul Edwards. _Wonder what they teach, in Prophet Grad School? _He resolves to check into one of the 'centres' during off hours.

It's pretty sweltering now, and Clint suggests they take a break, share some water. Hydration is key to avoiding heat stroke and given the sweat that's pouring off his own body, they sure won't have to worry about climbing down for a bathroom break. He hollers down to one of the guys on the ground, who obligingly tosses up a couple of bottles, which Clint catches effortlessly, even though one of them comes in too low. He takes off his shirt to dry his torso a little in what wind remains and lets his legs dangle over the side.

After a hesitant look down, David does the same, albeit leaning well back as he does so. His eyes glide over Clint's back and arms.

"You work out a lot?" he asks, his voice carefully bland.

Clint shrugs. _Shit. Hope he won't ask about the scars._

"Yeah. Lucy has a thing for shoulders. Pain in the ass, all those bench presses, but worth it. You know." He concludes his comment with what he hopes is the appropriate kind of slightly lecherous smirk.

David follows Clint's eyes as he searches the garden for Natasha – Lucy.

"Your wife," he says. "She's real pretty."

Clint turns his head slightly, his eyes focused on a flash of red, and a cobalt shirt. _Pretty?_ Not the word he'd use to describe Natasha Romanoff. Attractive, yes. Beautiful, definitely. Stunning – yeah, that too. But _pretty_? Pretty is for college girls with long blonde hair, parted in the middle, or for curly brunettes with dimpled smiles and thin, silver-edged glasses. Not for a redhead with cool green eyes, who moves with a lethal grace and who doesn't blink when her hands are reddened by arterial spray, or by the bullet she's digging out of her partner's leg.

"Yeah," he smiles proudly. "Pretty as a picture."

And then, because this seems like a good opportunity, he adds in a slightly conspiratorial voice (they're guys, after all - enlightened or not, right?) the question that's been on his mind.

"But there's a lot of pretty girls here, aren't there? I mean, compared to guys like us?"

Dave's legs stop dangling for a moment, and he cocks his head as he answers. _A tell,_ Clint knows, down to his gut, even if he only met the guy that morning. Like he's listening to the voice that will give him the right words to say.

"The path to enlightenment seems easier for the women. It is a sad fact that many of the men leave."

That's what Coulson said. Glad to hear it confirmed, even if _leave_ is a term that permits a certain … ambiguity.

"But you haven't."

Dave shrugs, says nothing. It's not a question, anyway – Clint knows better than to press. He also knows to inject just the right amount of conviction into his next words.

"And I won't, either."

As they return to their tasks, Clint thinks he can see a skeptical smile cross David Starlight's face, one that fails to touch the man's eyes as they glide back out into the field where the women are. But the moment passes, and they soon fall back into the soothing rhythm of their work, surrounded by the smell of the wood in the sun.

He hasn't thought of his bow for hours.

Later, at dinner and during the communal "prayer session," Clint searches for Natasha in the throng of the faithful. It is harder than he thinks it should be; she is surrounded by other women. On occasion, he even sees her smile.

It's odd, seeing her there, part of a cheerful flock that seems to find comfort in numbers. They're smiling and touching, obviously close, and seem oddly … protective of one another. Once, he thinks he sees one of them flinch a little when approached by a Brother. It's just a twitch of the shoulder at a touch, a momentary recoil replaced immediately by a cheerful smile and a gracious flick of long, blonde hair.

Maybe he imagined it. The flock closes around the blonde again, and he loses sight of her quickly.

The Prophet is nowhere in sight; word is he has been called away to spread his teachings.

Before Clint can continue his observations though David calls to him, inviting him to share a table with some of the other Brothers he'd met at the construction site. Before long, the discussions are about tools and methods of building things, with only the occasional reference to the Prophet's will. Clint's views are sought and valued, and he finds himself at the centre of the discussion without even trying.

Only once does he manage to catch Natasha's eyes. They shift to the side the tiniest bit, almost imperceptibly, before fixing on him again – the equivalent of an eloquent shrug, and a remonstration.

So far, so good, her glance tells him. _Nothing substantive to report as yet. _

_Stay focused, Barton. There's a job to be done._


	3. Part 3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Later than I'd hoped, sooner than I expected. Thanks to **Shenshen1977 **for test-driving this chapter with her usual eye for detail. Any remaining flaws I stuck in during revisions.

Warning: Some readers may find aspects of this chapter disturbing or triggering. Please see endnote for specific warnings.

* * *

**PART III**

**5. Ten Thousand Whisperin' **

The next two days pass - well, if not in a blur, then pretty uneventfully. By the end of Day Three, Clint and Natasha have already outlasted the previous agents sent by S.H.I.E.L.D. to the Temple of The Loving Church of Galactic Peace by a full twenty-four hours.

But so far, they have very little to show for it, other than the gratifying knowledge that Clint Barton can, in fact, keep his sarcastic mouth shut when required to do so.

As for Natasha, she's not quite sure what to do with the knowledge that she _enjoyed_ working in the garden. It's almost with regret that she had learned that gardening detail only happens every fourth day or so, but she refuses to dwell on her disappointment that she won't be going back out into the vegetable patch, and the … peace she found handling those plants.

But if there is any evidence of overt brainwashing techniques at work, Natasha hasn't seen it.

No conditioning through pain or cold, anger or fear, hatred or indifference.

No sleep disruption to the point of hallucination and disorientation, and no sensory deprivation or overload.

No hypnosis, no subliminal messaging, no threats.

Nothing she recognizes.

Sure, there's a lot of repetitive singing, chanting and indoctrination, all to dancing lights on the ceiling and the so-called Music of the Spheres – things said to be capable of hypnotic effect, but none of it is having any impact on her, nor does she see any change in her 'sisters' after. And the Temple Elders don't even seem to be _trying_ with Clint, given the reduced amount of time he and the other men are spending in service.

If there's a pattern to the rotations, she has also yet to see it. Then again, it's only been three days, maybe too early to draw conclusions? The work schedules seem to be assigned to each Church member on an individual basis, and she finds herself teamed with different women each time. None of her roommates - all of whom were present the first day - served with her on Day Two, and have been nowhere in evidence at all on Day Three. When she'd inquired where they were, she'd been met with bright smiles and an indication that "We all serve the Prophet in our own way."

The rotations have given Natasha the opportunity for more surreptitious 'interviews', although she hasn't learned much more than she had on the first day. There comes a point, in each discussion, where the women tend to … fall silent. They will speak of their devotion to the Prophet's vision of 'free love,' but when asked about details as to what that actually means, all they will give Natasha is a bright smile, and a "you will see". One of the other newcomers has not, it appears, learned much more, but admits to looking forward to "being initiated into the ways of the Prophet" – the same line Natasha has been using herself. It seems the newcomers are still on probation.

Cleaning detail is pretty straightforward (she'd been assigned the main house, and common areas of two of the women's dorms on Day Two), but kitchen duty is something Natasha plans on forgetting as quickly as she can put Montana behind her. The Black Widow likes her food as well as the next person and is not bad at putting a few things together for herself and occasionally Clint - a nicely seared tuna, a fresh Caprese salad (not that her partner would eat _that)_ – and she's a mean hand with a microwave. But cooking for a hundred or more? If she never has to peel another potato, the Black Widow will die a happy woman.

She manages to catch a glimpse of Clint a couple of times on both days, mostly when she and her current co-workers are walking to and from the prayer hall. He's still on the roof, putting plywood down on parts of the substructure on which he and some of the other men had been working the first day, and he's been working on a tan.

He'd managed to wave to her once, a quick lifting of his hand, but there hasn't been any physical proximity since their arrival. The end of Day Three offers the occasion of a brush-by at dinner, in the mess hall.

Having clearly decided that the thing a husband-and-wife would do at a time like that is to touch, Clint steps up to her in the food line-up and grazes the back of her neck with his lips. She shivers a little at the unexpected contact, at the feeling of his breath on her skin as he speaks.

"Your prayer meetings say anything about marital relations?"

She is momentarily startled, perhaps a bit more than she should be, but then realizes immediately what he is asking: he wants to talk, preferably in private. Surely that should not be a surprise to anyone, given that they are a husband and wife who arrived together in their search for a new life?

Now that she thinks of it, though, for a faith that stresses the value of 'the Body Beautiful' to the cause of the Prophet, and the journey to eternal bliss through free love, she has not come across any reference to where the traditional institution of marriage might fit in - not even as a bourgeois attitude to be discarded. It just … isn't mentioned. All things considered, that really begs the question why the request of Paul and Lucy Edwards to come to the compound together had been so readily accepted, $25,000 entrance fee notwithstanding.

Natasha's earlier thought, that she will need to distance herself from her 'husband' in order to get the job done, comes back to her. And so she takes a deliberate step back, rolls her shoulder as if to wipe off the touch of his lips, and looks at him coolly. She pitches her voice so as to make sure it carries.

"I'm sorry Paul, but I am still learning the ways of the Prophet. You and I will … _speak_ later."

The flash of genuine surprise in Clint's eyes is replaced by understanding, quickly masked in turn. Natasha approves. He proceeds to act as an unexpectedly thwarted husband might: standing there for a moment like a statue, open-mouthed, a disbelieving frown marring his features at the dawning realization that he is already being supplanted by the Prophet in his own wife's eyes.

Not many people know that Clint Barton actually _can_ act when he wants to; after all, he started his professional life as a circus performer, ready to enthrall audiences ranging from toddlers and farmers to university professors. Maybe he isn't as subtle as she is, certainly won't ever get nominated for an Academy Award, but he understands what kind of thing is called for when, which is more than half the battle.

She watches his eyes dart around the room, in what to an outside observer would look like an unconscious quest for support ('_did you see that? my wife just …'_). But Natasha knows full well that he is using that reaction to assess peoples' reactions to the little scene that just played out in front of them, freeze-framing each response in his mind for future analysis and reference.

Some of the women stare, lips pursed in a silent "oh," while others nod their approval in 'Lucy's' direction. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees two of the Brothers and the Head Sister exchange looks and, eventually, a whisper and a knowing smile.

Something in that little scene stirs a sense of unease, and she flicks her gaze back to Clint, hoping he's seen it too. He gives no indication that he has, but he seems to have come to a conclusion, the same one she herself had reached last night: if they want to learn more, they need to be seen as being on a divergent course.

Straightening his shoulders, Paul Edwards flashes an angry look at his wife.

"Fine. Have it your way. Let me know when you can be bothered to talk to me again."

And with that he heads across the room, to the table where a couple of his fellow carpenters are sitting, and sets his tray down with an audible bang.

During evening prayers – in which the men participate - Clint sends a dirty look her way; she shrugs it off with a particularly fervent chant.

When she returns to her room, one of her Sisters whispers excitedly that she had seen some of the Elders nod and smile in _dear Lucy's_ direction. They _like_ her, which makes sense to the young woman, as Lucy appears to have attracted the Prophet's attention from the beginning; she has such beautiful hair and skin and moves with such grace.

"You may be ready to share in the love sooner than any of us," she says, a little enviously. "It's taken some of us _weeks_ before we were found worthy. But eventually, we are all permitted to serve."

It's only then that Natasha notices that Moonlit's bed is empty, and that her small collection of things is gone. She doubts that the bed will remain empty for long.

"What happens if someone doesn't want to … serve?" she asks, hoping that pretending to know what she is talking about will draw the other woman out. By now she has her suspicions – the leer on some of the Brothers' faces, and the Prophet's when he was in attendance that first day, had told her all she needs to know about how _they_ might like to be 'served'. But it would be nice if someone in this so-called sisterhood could speak in something other than a theological short-hand to which she hasn't yet been given the key.

"Oh, you can always leave, of course," chirps the other remaining roommate. "Like Windrose. When she was considered ready to serve, she found her faith wasn't strong enough. And she left to go back out into the world, the poor thing."

The two Sisters look at each other in what Natasha assumes is a mixture of superiority and sorrow.

"That was the last we saw of her," Starshine says with a slightly superior sounding sigh. "May the Prophet's blessings be with her always."

...

**6. Saw A Room Full of Men**

After the little scene in the cafeteria, Clint fully expects to be thrown out of the compound. His usefulness in bringing and keeping his evidently more … desirable wife here appears to have reached its expiry date. He's intrigued by the experience; the other (single) agents reported sad-but-stern lectures about "insufficient devotion potential" before being summarily shown the door. Since he will be expected to leave his wife behind, the tack will have to be different.

But instead of being summoned to some blue-velvet-lined inner sanctum to be sent on the road, he is invited to another round of carpentry duty. Maybe his not inconsiderable skills are too valuable, at least until such time as the latest outbuilding is complete? Even wing nuts have a practical streak; that suspicion is confirmed when fewer people than before turn up at the construction site. (_Where are the rest, and what are they doing?_)

This morning's job doesn't take him on the roof, though; it's framing a door and windows. No, make that vents, not windows. The openings that have been cut into the wall of the new structure are obviously not meant for light, but for air conditioning or heat extraction units. Seems a bit odd, as it doesn't get that hot in Montana, at least not very often. Maybe the Prophet's version of the Wondrous Apocalypse involves climate change? And what about the soundproofing panels?

Interestingly, now that he gets to spend some time inside the structure, Clint can also see some of the wiring being done. The archer is no electrician, but as someone who occasionally has to know how to short out a building's power in order to get out alive he has a basic understanding of how the stuff works, and what's what. The plugs being put in by one of the Brothers look like 20-amp units, which is rather a lot of juice for a structure that small. What kind of equipment could the Prophet's disciples be planning on using here? If it's something high-powered, it might generate a lot of heat, which would sure explain the need for outside venting.

Lines to the building that houses the compound's generator system haven't been laid yet; the power tools Clint has been playing with are run off lengthy extension cords leading back to those generators. (You'd think someone who advocates the simple life would be into wind-or-solar energy, but nope.)

Time to go exploring; his time here must be running out.

Clint allows the power saw he's been using to cut two-by-fours into the right lengths to die a sudden death, and takes the Prophet's name in vain.

"Connection must be busted down the line," he opines with sufficient volume to be overheard, and heads off in the direction of the extension cord. He makes a show of checking the various connectors until he figures he's out of sight between buildings, and heads off towards one of the small outbuildings that serve as a model of what they are constructing now.

As luck will have it, the closest one is beside the generator house; power lines are strung between the two buildings. Similar to the one they are building now it has no windows and only a single door, but the power line is leading through one of the vents. With a catlike grace, Clint jumps up and, suspended from the lower part of the frame by calloused fingertips, chins up and peeks through the slats of the vent housing. Luckily, the fan is moving sufficiently fast so as not to obscure his vision.

He'd expected to have to wait for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but the opposite is true – he finds himself staring straight at a number of klieg lights and dimmers. A thousand watts a pop, he figures – sure explains the need for both the amount of juice and the ventilation going into these places.

All the lights – and a couple of whirring cameras, operated by a couple of his sometime fellow construction workers - are trained towards a bed, where a naked young woman is … putting on a show, for want of a better term, in front of several men he doesn't recognize. (_Out-of-state visitors?) _One of the watchers is starting to unzip his pants and getting himself ready to join the show; he's practically drooling in anticipation.

A porn production?

Now Clint is the consummate professional at all times, but he's also a man – a weakness he is all too aware of when he finds himself staring at his partner when her back is turned, or when she is asleep in a shared safe room after a hard mission. So, on some visceral level he should therefore be distracted - turned on? - by the scene playing out before him, but he's not, he's _not. _It takes him only a couple of seconds to determine what it is that leaves him stone cold to the lewd proceedings on the other side of the wall.

It's the girl's face.

She may be there out of her own free will, but she's not enjoying this. She's _trying _to, trying very, very hard to convince herself that she thinks what she has been doing, and what is about to happen to her is a wonderful thing; is what she wants and is meant to achieve what she has dreamed about. Even over the sound of the fan he can hear her humming that pervasive little chant, the one that speaks of devotion and love and a future among the stars.

But she's not an actress, and the truth is a tiny tear that Clint, the trained observer with the eyes of a Hawk – even when watching through the whirr of blades - can see forming in the corner of one of her eyes. He doubts that any of the other men will see it, or if they do, that they would care.

(For some, tears are a spice.)

Clint feels the bile rising in his gut. The urge to intervene, to break a few necks, to wrap the girl up in one of those hideously cliché satin sheets she's lying on and take her out of this place is almost irresistible. But he _is_ a professional, and they_ do_ have their orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. – he and Natasha are here to learn, not to disrupt; to take note, not action.

He does, however, make a small oath just then. Not the sort of oath that would get him an eye roll from Hill. No, it's the_ good_ kind of oath, the kind that he learned to his own surprise he can both make and keep, ever since he turned his life around and became one of the good guys, regardless of what others might say about his chosen profession.

_This isn't over,_ he swears into the silence of his own repressed rage, and who cares whether he sounds like some muscle-bound moron from a cheap action movie, or worse, a politician. _I'll be back._

But for now he's seen enough, more than enough truth be told, and so he lowers himself back down, carefully, without a sound.

He heads back to the building that contains the generator, and makes a show of checking the connection to the cable that feeds his part of the construction site. Supposedly satisfied, he heads back.

"All good?" David Starlight asks, his face a question mark.

Clint shrugs.

"Loose connection. Maybe some critter walked across it or something, pulled it out. I jammed it in good."

"I didn't see you for a minute there. Everything okay?"

Surveillance? Interesting_. _Not very intent on keeping it a secret they are, though, letting him know that his absence was noticed. Clint makes his best _I'm embarrassed_ face, the one without the _but I don't really mean it_ undercurrent that he reserves for Coulson.

"Went around the back for a sec. Had to … emm … take a leak," he says. "So I went in the underbrush. There a rule about this on the compound?"

David straightens a little.

"_The Temple_," he says, his tone slightly admonishing. "We keep _the Temple_ pristine."

_Shit. _Vocabulary will ever be your downfall, Hawkeye.

"My apologies," he says with as much sincerity as he can fake. "Guess I'm still learning. I thought the _Temple_ was just what we call that building over there."

He points with his chin at the Centre of Worship.

"No," David replies firmly – and is there a tone of regret in his voice? "All the land of the Prophet's Church is his Temple. And we must guard both the gardens and the halls against defilement of any sort."

_And what do you want to call shooting what is probably pornographic materials with women who are less than willing?_

Clint bites his tongue, and channels his inner Caspar Milquetoast. (He has to be in there somewhere, cowering behind the desire to take an M-16 to the place.)

"Understood. Again, I apologize. It won't happen again."

"Anyway, Marvin has asked whether you could join him on the roof again. Why I was looking for you. Seems you did a really good job up there yesterday, and he thinks you're wasted as a framer."

And so Clint finds himself back on the roof a few minutes later, nailing down overlapping ash fold shingles on the part of the roof he worked on the day before. It's the only part of the roof that's ready for that step, so he offers to help frame the rest as it doesn't make sense to shingle before the whole thing is ready. But Marvin (last name unknown, probably something catchy like Comet-Tail or Nebula Rasa) admits that the Prophet is coming back tomorrow, and He likes to see progress. And progress means shingles, apparently. The need to appease a penchant for optics over substance is not, apparently, limited to politicians.

So shingle Clint does, however inefficient, while Marvin and another guy try to wrangle a couple of four-by-fours into place just a few feet over.

David seems to feel mildly guilty about the chewing-out he'd given the newbie earlier, and works his way over on the roof until he's across from Clint.

"I heard about your and Sister Lucy's … disagreement last night. What happened?"

Clint/Paul decides to play it coy. Even if you are to surrender all worldly goods upon entry into the Prophet's Temple, surely discussions among married couples are still subject to privacy constraints? And it would be natural to be reticent? But clearly, something is expected from him. He shrugs.

"She's really enjoying herself here. Which is good. It's _good. _I am too. But I asked for some time together, and she told me to wait until she's found her feet in the community … the _Sisterhood_ a bit more."

_Vocabulary. _Again_._

David nods approvingly.

"She is very wise, your wife. Being here isn't a vacation, Paul. It's a decision that will change your lives. Learning true devotion to the Prophet takes time, and distractions can be unwise."

Clint does a quick calculation whether the husband being classified as a "distraction" should merit a snort – as far as he is concerned, a knuckle sandwich might be more appropriate - but decides not to tempt fate.

"Maybe you're right," he sighs. "We are both still learning our place."

Clint has four nails in his mouth and is aiming a fifth with his fingers when he notices David looking over to the side, and his peripheral vision discloses a rapidly approaching shadow from the right. He has just enough time to spit out the nails – in preference to inhaling them – and to try and block whatever is coming with his forearm.

What he cannot stop, though, is the laws of physics, as a result of which the momentum of the two-by-four is transmitted to him and knocks him off his rooftop perch.

Instinct and - lets face it, _experience_ - let him twist in mid-fall so he wouldn't land on his head; his last thought before darkness hits is to wonder what they will tell Natasha, and what his partner will do.

* * *

END NOTE: Warning - This chapter has Clint witnessing sexual activity in which, given the context, consent is an issue, and which arguably amounts to rape (he would certainly _think_ so - after all, that's how I wrote him). Some readers have complained that I failed to warn adequately, hence I have added this note and upped the rating. I would like to express my regret for any discomfort my earlier failure to warn may have caused to some readers.


	4. Part 4

AUTHOR's NOTE:

Some readers had difficulties with a scene in the last chapter and suggested I put on additional warning; I had already listed "disturbing themes" and a trigger warning for "sexual exploitation." But now I'm being extra careful, because I don't want controversy to detract from what this is about.

This story deals in some detail with a trope used by many, many fanfic writers: "… _that time they took out that human trafficking ring in [country of your choice]_." Often this is lumped in with others, such as the _"monster-of-the-week in {city Y]_". Well, I've decided to turn over that rock, to look at what those three words – _human trafficking ring - _might actually mean, including to the agents who find it. (Unfortunately the reality is worse than anything I would be willing to describe, or read about, in a fanfic.)

So let there be no mistake, if you have trigger issues around any and all matters dealing with sexual exploitation, read no further. To those who decide to look – my thanks. Huge thanks are also due to **Kylen** for being my bellwether for this chapter.

* * *

**Part IV**

**7. Whose Body Was Burning**

It's Day Four, and Natasha is a bit disturbed by just how pleased she is to be back on gardening detail. Her joy dissipates before she has a chance to suppress it, though, when she is given her specific assignment: _watering._

All her years as a Red Room trainee and operative, two years with S.H.I.E.L.D. – working with implements both profound and profane - none of it has prepared Natasha Romanoff for this. _Black Widow – Green Thumb? _Hardly. (She remembers the look on Coulson's face when he found most of the plants she'd promised to look after for him up to the brim in water, rotting from the bottom up. Not to mention the dried, shriveled husk of the one she had missed …)

The fine weather is holding and the ground is getting dry. The place hasn't been set up with proper irrigation – at least that's what one of the sisters, who grew up on a farm, says; whatever that means, potatoes and carrots have to be watered.

Natasha eyes the long, rubber hose with a mixture of distaste and suspicion, and by the time she has figured out the spray nozzle settings, she has catalogued at least six different ways in which it could be used in her ordinary trade, although none particularly promising. The hose is unwieldy and stiff, and the water pressure not enough to …

Oh well.

For a while Natasha is content with just spraying the water on the soil, allowing it to darken before she moves on to the next patch. It isn't until JayCee Windsong stirs up the dirt with her toes, to demonstrate that things are still bone dry underneath, that Natasha learns that watering properly requires an element of patience. It means she has to stand there, with the nozzle pointed in the same direction, for a long time. (Whatever happened to those things people put on their lawn, turn on, and walk away from? Don't they have sprinklers in Montana?)

Clint would be so much better at this, she considers as she wipes the sweat off her forehead and keeps pointing the spray.

It's when she turns towards the carrot patch, though, that she spots the rainbow: sunlight on individual droplets forming a solid, magical bridge of radiant colour. Another thing they never taught in the Red Room: Refracted light isn't just a weapon, to be used to temporarily blind an opponent. It can be … _pretty._

Intrigued, Natasha moves the hose around to see if she can make the rainbow bigger, suppressing a twinge of disappointment when it disappears altogether. But a few of those drops reach one of the women who are mounding earth around the carrot plants - Dawn, her name is (or isn't). At first Dawn yelps in surprise, but then she breaks out in a tiny smile and asks, a little shyly, "Can you do that again, Lucy? It's so _hot_ out here."

Before she knows it, Natasha finds herself hosing down a number of overheated garden workers and there is laughter and shrieking, and eventually she succumbs to temptation and points the hose straight up, watching the drops head for her own face and chest, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.

This is … _fun_.

She feels the sudden urge to share her delight with Clint, somehow, and looks over to the construction site to see if maybe he's been watching. Should she be embarrassed, if he was? Probably not – her partner, despite his reputation for standoffishness and grim determination, has a finely honed sense of the ridiculous. But he isn't anywhere in sight, and for a moment she regrets that she brushed him off last night – regardless of how useful their little display may have been to the mission.

_The mission._

Right.

Natasha focuses on the black hose in her hands for a moment, and looks for targets of opportunity.

Her sometime roommate Moonlit has apparently returned from wherever she had disappeared to yesterday. The young woman, although smiling and damp from an encounter with Natasha's hose, seems a little … subdued. A good place to start.

"I missed you yesterday," Natasha says as she points the spraying nozzle in a direction where it will be of more than entertainment value, and holds it there.

To anyone else, Moonlit's face might be a study in pride. Natasha, who has been trained to read facial tells with the same accuracy as a cardiologist would the lines on an ECG, sees something else.

"I was privileged to serve the Prophet in love," the young woman says firmly, her chin raised.

Natasha recognizes the gesture, instantly, intimately: Surrender, cloaked in defiant acceptance. How many years since she herself had learned the difference? Moonlit's voice cuts through the sudden fog of remembered selves and the memory of a debt, never to be repaid. (Does Clint even know what he did?)

"I served him in love," she repeats, before adding brightly, "to help generate the energy that will call the Others to us and bring us closer to Fulfillment."

Natasha takes a deep breath, calming herself, finding Lucy. This is not the time to debate principles of arcane theology or self-deception, but rather to establish facts.

"I thought the Prophet was gone on a mission?"

"He is. He is bringing four of the sisters into the world, to spread the Word among the unenlightened. I have not yet been privileged to serve him _personally_" – humble words, with a patina of irritation – "but I serve him faithfully in other ways, by serving others. By showing his ways and spreading the joy of his Word to those who would come here to seek out his teachings. I know that he will hear of my service when he returns tonight, and I know he will be pleased."

Moonlit shifts her stance in memory, telling Natasha all she needs to know. _This …_ The Red Room did not train its girls in the recreational use of garden hoses, but this – this is a reaction she recognizes.

She has to suppress a sudden cloud of rage and nausea, the need for a verbal knife to cut through Moonlit's desire to convince her that that whatever she had been asked to do, had been something she wanted and was glad to do_. _

"I _know _he will be pleased," the young woman adds, nodding to herself.

"How many?" Natasha infuses her voice with excitement and admiration. "And did they see the truth of the Prophet through your gift?"

"Three," comes the answer, rather more quickly than Natasha expected. "But one of the Brothers affirmed his faith before them, to ensure that I was prepared. And yes, they were serene when they left, and the Brothers were pleased. Brother Armin told me we can expect to see them come back."

Natasha grips the hose tightly, refusing to let her jaw clench. But Moonlit pre-empts her response; now that she has started talking, it's almost as if a dam has burst.

"Soon I hope to be even more privileged than this."

Her voice lowers conspiratorially, almost as if she were afraid to be accused of bragging.

"Sometimes, the Brothers make a _film_ of these celebrations. _Films_, Lucy! Those could bring _hundreds_ of others to the Prophet's truth. _Thousands! _The new building will be a proper studio, I heard. I think they were planning on filming today … Stardust was asked."

She grows a little wistful.

"I wish they'd allow me to serve in this way. Maybe then the Prophet will be pleased enough to ask me to come and serve _him_. Imagine the privilege, Lucy. Just …. think!"

It's Natasha's turn to let enthusiasm colour her voice.

"How long do I have to wait before I can serve like you did, or Stardust? And how long does it take before the Prophet comes to one of us himself?"

There's a slight pull in Moonlit's shoulder – jealousy? Defensiveness?

"This was my fifth time serving," she says, resentment colouring her voice. "I was here for four weeks before I was chosen. _Four whole weeks._"

Natasha manages to look indignant; it seems to be expected.

"That's a long time," she says sympathetically.

Moonlit shrugs, all diffident pride now.

"At first I thought it was because I'm not pretty enough. Not like you. I was … untouched before I came here. There is power in the first time and they told me the Prophet wanted it to be … special, for a special occasion. So he decided to wait for the right person to convert to his Word. One of the Brothers told me I succeeded. Of course, this is not an option _you_ have, having been married and all."

A sly look crosses her plain, but not unattractive features.

"But you … you are so beautiful, Lucy. You could bring many into the fold with your beauty. Your turn may come sooner than you think. The Brothers like you. I heard one of them mention your name."

…..

**8. What Did You Hear**

Clint doesn't remain unconscious for long; the blackout he experienced when landing seems to have been more the result of the air having been knocked out of his lungs, than of any rebound hit to his head upon landing. He knows full well that if he hadn't managed to twist as he did, he might have crushed his skull or snapped his neck - but there's no point dwelling on what didn't happen.

Fortunately, playing possum in the event of captivity is as much a trained skill as it is ingrained behaviour for the archer, and he remains motionless as his erstwhile fellow carpenters gather around him.

"Is he dead?" David wants to know, in a slightly pinched voice.

One of the others – Marvin? – bends down and puts his fingers on Clint's pulse point.

"No. Just unconscious."

The third guy, Vic, chimes in.

"So what're we waiting for? Finish him. The Elders want him gone, the wife practically kicked him out last night, _and_ he's been wandering around poking his nose into things he ain't got no business with. Wonder why Jake let 'im come here in the first place. There's a reason we don't do couples."

_Jake? _Ah yes – enlightenment dawns through the lingering fog. Jacob Malone. _The Prophet, Harbinger of Infinite Wisdom and Enlightenment._

"You _know_ why, Vic. No husband, no wife. Package deal, and the wife … shit man, you've seen her. Stands to make us a fortune, that one. Jake can't wait to get his own hands on her. Plus, _he_ came in handy for the framing, didn't he."

Marvin seems on the same page as Vic: Paul Edwards has outlived his usefulness – now that he's brought in twenty-five grand and the prize wife, with a spot of free home improvement thrown in as a bonus.

"Boss and his bright ideas, thinking with his dick instead of what's good for business. And now _we_ have to deal with the fucking fall-out. Better get on with it."

Clint relaxes his muscles a little, ignoring his instinctive reaction to Malone wanting to get "his hands on" his partner; he's ready to strike if need be. For now, though, he is gaining an utterly new appreciation for one of Natasha's peculiar approaches to interrogation: Let them take you out, let them talk while they think you're not a threat - even if it means you come out with a whale of a bruise. (Or three.) _Keep monologuing, dudes._

David's voice comes as a surprise. "You sure?" he asks, in a tone that suggests that maybe he isn't. "Can't we just – I don't know - throw him out?"

"And then what? He comes back with the cops and tries to get his wife back? C'mon, Marv, finish him. Elders ordered him out of the picture,_ so let's just do it._"

Vic's voice almost has a whine to it now. Clint knows the type – happy to place bets on a fight from the sidelines, willing to scream himself hoarse at the sight of blood and spitting teeth, never ready to scrape his own knuckles. He'd be surprised if the guy wasn't drooling already at the thought of watching him die - provided it was at somebody else's hands. _Scum._

But David isn't ready to give up.

"Why would he come back for her after the way she dissed him last night? She's a goner for The Cause, and he knows it. So we take him to the hospital and when he wakes up, we tell him he had an accident and that his wife don't want nothin' to do with him anymore. Didn't even want to make sure he was alright. Chances are he'll be so pissed off, he'll walk away and never comes back."

David Starlight. The disciple with … what? A belated conscience? _Good plan, Dave._ Naïve, but … good.

Marvin doesn't even bother to point out the obvious flaws in David's thinking. He has other ideas.

"We'll keep him knocked out for now. Let Jake decide what to do with the guy; he's the one brought him here. He still hasn't figured out what to do with the one that tried to run on Tuesday, either. He's back tonight."

Not a natural born killer either, Marvin, but heck of a lot smarter than Dave, hoping someone else will keep his hands clean. ("_Ish"_, as Nora from Accounting would say.) Without the scent of the voyeur. More dangerous than either of the other two.

(_Who tried to run?)_

"And how do we do that? Whack him on the head some more?" Vic sounds hopeful.

Clint doesn't hear anything after that; apparently that's what was decided though because the next time he comes to, he's in a dark place, hands cuffed behind his back and his head hurts like shit.

_Fucking amateurs_. Obviously none of them are the brains of the operation, or even the muscle – probably why they're on barn raising detail, rather than running camera equipment or welcoming paying customers to the Compound of Love. Just as well they're leaving the decision-making to people further up the food chain.

And how should Paul Edwards react when The Prophet himself comes calling – assuming he doesn't delegate mop-up back down?

Clint quickly decides that it doesn't matter, really. Any outfit that gets him hit with a two-by-four (twice) doesn't deserve any of his stellar playacting. And besides – he has a promise to keep, even if the person to whom he made it never even saw his face.

_Goodbye, Paul fucking Edwards – hello, Hawkeye._

He starts by taking inventory of his body. Head – careful shaking makes the pain worse, but not in a way that suggests any splinters have lodged in his brain. No fractures then. _Check._

His chest hurts where Marvin drove in the wood that knocked him off the roof (he's still pissed about that – Clint likes high places, and falling always tastes like failure). Deep breath – yep, at least two ribs slightly cracked. Shit, but nothing to be done about that for now. Collar bone's fine though. _Check._

Legs – yep, his feet are tied together alright; feels like rope. Cool. Rope he can work with; rope, once you get your hands free, beats the shit out of zip ties, especially when you haven't got a knife. Arms and shoulders – bruised but fine. Had worse. Could draw his bow if and when he gets to it. (What will they do with the car, if he's supposed to have bolted?)

Hands - definitely cuffed, fully functional otherwise. Clint moves his wrists experimentally and almost laughs. The cuffs are catalogue bondage special, cheap shit metal toys designed to please the wannabe adventurous on a Saturday night, not to contain a trained operative. They don't. _Fucking amateurs._

The darkness is actually resolving a little as he gets to work on the cuffs and the leg restraints. It's not complete, there's a tiny beam of what looks like daylight coming from above, and his eyes are adjusting. Something like a gangway leading up. (Stairway to heaven? Not in this place.) Smooth, no treads. His infrequently accessed Iowa memory banks spit out a word: _root cellar. _

He'd woken up right underneath, so probably they just dumped him straight down the chute. No fuss, no muss. Explains the bruised ankles and hip he doesn't remember from the first fall. Anyway. There's direct access to the outside then, theoretically at least; he'd have to wait for darkness though. Question therefore – can he afford to wait, or is the cellar connected to anything else.

It's pretty clear based on what he's seen today – and factoring in all those cars, all those visitors - that Malone runs to what amounts to a sex ring, using his little galactic fantasy to make vulnerable women happy to go along. Based on the number of pockets of believers S.H.I.E.L.D. has located beyond the Montana home base, chances are the girls, once suitably … _prepared_ … are shipped across the border to Canada, and points beyond. No passports, no support, no place to run.

Provided they even _want_ to run, or realize that they should – instead of singing the praises of the fucking bastard that's selling them into slavery. He's clever, Malone is. Not for him the risk that his victims would complain of being held against their will; not for him accusations of assault.

_Serving the Prophet in love._

The image of the girl humming to herself threatens to loop itself in Clint's head until he manages to banish her from his mind (for now) – _must think clearly._

As far as his own situation is concerned, all things considered qualms are probably not high on Malone's list of virtues, no matter how hard he might be wanting to erase his footprints elsewhere in his flourishing empire. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that his Band of Brothers is better off without the inconvenient husband. Assuming Vic wheedles for the kill as soon as Malone returns tonight, Clint's window for escape is narrow.

He stretches his muscles, gingerly feeling the back of his head now that his hands are free. Serious goose egg coming up there. Could be worse though, like the time he got grazed by a bullet and Natasha teased him for _weeks_ about the bald patch on his head.

_Natasha._ As he starts exploring the confines of his prison, he wishes he could be a fly on the wall when they tell his partner that her 'husband' has decided to up and leave her. Pro that she is, she won't do anything right away, beyond maybe shedding a few crocodile tears to mourn the ostensible end of her marriage. It's the _after_ that intrigues him. Would the Black Widow come looking for him - at the risk of breaking cover?

The root cellar isn't particularly big, and it doesn't take Clint long to find the door. Locked, of course, padlock on the other side, but made of wood. _Old_ wood. Not reinforced. Obviously, using the place as a prison has been an afterthought. Chances are, even if the hinges hold the padlock, the door itself won't withstand a couple of good, solid kicks from someone trained to split boards with his bare feet.

Might as well go for it, provided there's no one on the other side. Or not too many, anyway.

The archer's hearing has never been on a par with his eyesight – thanks to his father's tendency to go for the headshot when slapping his sons around – but S.H.I.E.L.D. medical did some fixing after he joined, and now it's at least average. Clint puts his ear to the wood and slows his breath to improve his chances.

He's not sure what he expected – silence is what he hoped for, really, since getting the fuck out of a cell is always better without an audience. But there's no preparation for what he does hear on the other side: A sob, followed by a whimper.

He's not alone.

…..

**9. Goin' Back Out**

"Mrs. Edwards?"

The man coming up to Natasha as she tries to wrangle the hose into something resembling a coil - preferably without getting mud all over herself - is not someone she's spoken with before. She's seen him though, at the table with Clint and his fellow carpentry gang.

"I'm Marvin. And …"

His effort to fake sincerity is admirable, but wholly unsuccessful. _Amateur._

"I have a message from your husband. From Paul, that is."

Yes, she knows her husband's name is Paul. And now she also knows that the man before her is very nervous.

"He … he left. Said this wasn't for him, but he says he knows you're happy here. And that he didn't want to be in the way of your happiness."

Clint leave the compound? The mission? (Her?) Right.

It's obvious that Marvin has no clue as to the absurdity of this proposition - Natasha herself wastes no time considering it. Nor does she stop to wonder just why she is so sure that Clint wouldn't leave her; it's been almost two years since Minsk and while she no longer remembers how pissed off she was that he came after her, she has not forgotten that he did.

Nor does she bother to wonder what might have happened - whether he stumbled across some critical intel, or whether he allowed his smartass mouth to run off with him. What _does_ matter is whether he is still alive; she's almost completely confident that he is, even if she doesn't know exactly why.

Time to focus on the now. She runs through a flowchart of credible emotional responses; disbelief and denial are a good way to start.

"What? What do you mean he just … left? We wanted to do this together. He _can't _have. You must be mistaken. He'll be back. He … he _loves_ me."

Marvin's features are a study in sympathetic concern, with an underlay of disappointment. (What did he expect?) He reaches for her shoulders with both hands, thumbs lingering lightly on the exposed skin of her neck.

"It's because he loves you that he let you go," he says softly. Natasha can practically hear Clint snark a comment on the dangers of spending too much time in a Hallmark store. "He knows you found your place here. He himself didn't seem too happy; he made a few comments when we were working together. I don't think his faith was strong."

Marvin's thumbs are still on her neck, twitching a bit as they are obviously keen to explore her skin in more detail. Natasha arches into his touch, just enough to make it seem involuntary, a natural craving for physical comfort.

"Maybe you're right. Paul didn't seem to want … what I want, even after only three days here. That comment he made at dinner last night …"

She smiles up at Marvin through her tears, a little shakily.

"Maybe he'll change his mind. I'll try and talk to him when he contacts me. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for being a friend at this difficult time. Everyone here is so kind."

She grazes her hand over the fingers that are still on her shoulders, and Marvin twitches a little at her touch. His tongue darts out for a second and she can see the calculation behind his eyes: not _whether_, but _when_. Moonlit is perceptive about some things.

"But for now … I think I'd like to be by myself for a bit. Maybe I'll lie down, or maybe I'll go for a walk. This is a lot to take in. Is it permitted to skip Prayers, just once, to meditate privately?"

She's still in Marvin's space, her eyes soft, brimming with tears, and how could he refuse her? He can't; she can see the speculation in his eyes: a little sympathy now, big favours later.

"Yes, yes of course. I'll advise the Elders."

He takes his hands off her shoulders and bends to pick up the hose.

"You go and do what you need to do, Lucy. I'll handle that for you."

Natasha makes sure to put a little extra sway in her hip for him as she leaves – if nothing else, it will buy a second's hesitation on his part in a fight.

…..

Natasha waits until the temple bell – or rather, that tape of a cheery Glockenspiel, tinkling the ubiquitous melody she has come to loathe – has finished, before she silently leaves her shared room. None of her roommates have been here since the morning, all serving the Prophet in whatever way He (or rather, His stand-ins) might have decreed. She doesn't want to think about what the ones other than Moonlit, who was in the garden with her, might have been doing.

At least, the quiet has given her time to think.

Natasha understands the idea of intimate service, including the willingness to let others use her body in the name of a Greater Cause. She had done it more times than she can remember at the behest of those who made her, in the name of the Red Room and the increasingly shadowy causes it stood for, and had never thought anything about it – until the day she did. And not long thereafter, Clint Barton had made the point that there was such a thing as _choice_, by sparing her life.

She may still use her body at times (albeit in a different fashion, and usually with Clint watching her back), but she does so only ever by choice. _Her_ choice.

So how has what seems to amount to prostitution in the name of a self-appointed Prophet managed to become a reality for people like Moonlit Ascension, or whoever she was before she came to Montana? Natasha hasn't seen anything like the manipulation or brainwashing techniques that Coulson had suggested might be at work here; surely she would recognize something like that? All she has seen is people who profess their love of Malone's "teachings" – some more convincingly than others.

She had never been expected to _love_ the Red Room, or the things she'd been asked to do in its name; pride in her accomplishments, yes, they taught her that, together with fear and contempt for failure. Again and again. Pain and punishment and the void of stolen memories, being unmade and remade again and again … There's nothing like that here. Only that all-too-frequently professed love.

A remembered voice whispers in her ear, still strong: _Love is for children. _

A thought strikes her then: Is that why the spell of the Loving Church of Galactic Peace can't touch her? Because Natasha Romanoff has been immunized against … love?

Enough. She grits down her teeth; time to consider Clint. If she's honest with herself, she has been putting the thought off, knowing she would have to wait before she would be able to act. (No point dwelling on things you can't change, is there?) But by now, telling herself that _Hawkeye knows how to handle himself_ is no longer enough. Has he been captured, or … worse … for coming across evidence of what she has just concluded about Malone's operation?

She is beginning to regret – rather a lot – having brushed off his request for a tête-à-tête the night before. _Are her own actions what sealed a decision by Malone's people that he was expendable?_ Natasha opens the false bottom of her duffle bag and retrieves her bracelets – the ones they call her 'bite' – and several thin-bladed knives, which she straps to her thighs in a gesture born of routine.

Lucy had told Marvin that she might go for a walk to clear her poor, confused head - but the person now leaving the dormitory is not Lucy Edwards.

The Black Widow is going in search of her partner.


	5. Part 5

A/N: I initially thought there would be five chapters; that was before it made sense to split it up. Part VI should not take as long, though; it's mostly written. Thanks to **Kylen** for virtual handholding and cheerleading, and to the World's Best-and-Fastest Beta, **ShenShen1977, **for being who and what she is, and a friend to boot.

Warnings for violence in this one. Disturbing themes continue. It is what it is. I'd never thought I'd go there, but here we are. (Next story will be a lot less dark, that I promise.)

* * *

**PART V**

**10. Mouth of a Graveyard**

Natasha's first stop is the car park. The car she and Clint had driven to the compound is no longer where they had left it, but she expected that - a nod to plausibility in support of the claim that her 'husband' has left. It's worth a few dollars though even without papers, and she suspects the Brothers wouldn't want to do away with it entirely; getting the keys from Clint's room would have been easy enough.

It doesn't take her long to find it, starting with tire tracks leading away from its former location that no one bothered to conceal. Instead of heading for the highway though – so much for corroboration - the tracks point towards an old lumber road. The car itself has been left in a small clearing off the road, ineffectively concealed by the surrounding greenery. Natasha exhales when she finds the trunk empty.

It's too much of a risk to move the car closer to the compound for now; it's better off where it is. But it has things she needs; things _they _might need. She gives a quick look around and rolls under the car to retrieve her Glocks and a small toolkit from the recesses under the chassis, together with Clint's bow and quiver.

The weight of his weapon on her back is oddly comforting, but the price for the subtlety that it offers when used by its owner is its bulk. She ends up stashing it under a large bush at the entrance to the parking area where it will be hard to see, but easy to retrieve. That done, she heads back into the compound, looking for things out of the ordinary with the air of a woman deep in thought.

Her working assumption is that if Clint is alive, he is most likely being held in one of the compound's buildings somewhere. Playing the laws of probability, she rules out the rather public temple, dining hall and dormitories. The main administrative building – the old farmhouse where Malone has his inner sanctum - and the half or so dozen scattered smaller outbuildings are more likely candidates.

The main building looks deserted, which in itself is unusual, if not perhaps at this hour. Most of the Elders who habitually go in and out will be singing the praises of Jacob Malone at service now, while the man himself and some members of his inner circle are still away. She's never been inside, so it's as good a place to start as any, and now is obviously the time.

The Prophet requires tranquility and serenity if he is to lay the groundwork for the arrival of the Others; to enter his lair, one normally has to have been summoned. But Lucy Edwards might reasonably want to know whether her husband has left a note or talked to someone when he took off, and so Natasha walks right in through the front door as if she belongs.

The interior decoration of the building is best described as _Corporate Masculine_, preferred by Captains Of Industry the world over. If Natasha has seen it once, she has seen it a hundred times: Dark carpeting, wood paneling, molded ceilings. The main palette in this one is moss green, forest notes. Black-framed photographs show Malone with men (not a single woman) whose status-enhancing proximity is presumably good for business - Governors, Congressmen, Senators. She should probably be able to name some of them, but cataloguing politicians and CEOs as a species is Coulson's hobby. Natasha tends to focus on one mark at a time.

The symbols of Galactic Peace that are so ubiquitous on all the other buildings are present here as well: Glass globes and stars dangle from the ceiling, and a framed print of a particularly striking image from the Hubble telescope holds pride of place in the vestibule. But they're almost an afterthought, pasted on like a corporate brand rather than an integral part of the décor. The Hubble picture is dwarfed by one of Malone himself, in full ceremonial robes.

Nothing exactly screams _place of detention_ but there is enough here to attract Natasha's professional interest on another level. And any information she finds here might help her find Clint.

There is a set of glass-paneled French doors that look ostentatious enough to be leading to Malone's office; Natasha walks right past it, the carpet muffling whatever sound her soft-soled shoes might make. The closed, locked door next to it offers a much more tempting target - if you are looking for information, always start with the Executive Assistant. Natasha reaches into her small tool pouch, finds the little tension wrench by feel and is inside within thirty seconds, without as much as a _click_.

There is no sign of her partner - that would have been too easy - but there is a computer, and Natasha is first and foremost a professional. She reaches back into her toolkit and retrieves the USB-stick-like device that will copy an entire hard drive in under three minutes, without need for a password and without a trace left behind. Three cheers for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s R&D department; the Red Room equivalent would have been carving the data into a wax tablet by comparison. Capitalism breeds many things; innovation is by far the most useful.

While she waits for technology to perform its miracles, Natasha investigates the desktop and drawers. There's little of note though, this being the e-information age, and the desk, moreover, is almost Coulson-tidy.

The only thing that draws her attention is a small stack of passports that looks as if someone dropped them off earlier, in the expectation that somebody else would deal with them in due course. She flips through them quickly; all belong to women, none of whom she recognizes. Each document bears a stamp from Immigration Canada, dated the day before yesterday. One of Malone's people, come back early?

Passports.

Moonlit's breathless words come back to her: "… to go out in the world, silly. To do the work of the Prophet, so that we may all be prepared for the glory of the Ascent."

But why keep their passports here? Of course: Passports are power when you need to cross a border; their absence springs a trap. Can't throw them out though, in case they are needed for onward journeys.

The last piece of the puzzle falls into place, and a cold hand twists Natasha's gut. _Serving the Prophet in love. _The Loving Church of Galactic Peace is not a church, it's a business. The kind she has encountered before, in different variations.

Now is not the time to flash back, to remember, to relive, but it comes unbidden nonetheless: _Girls in a cold room. Your country needs you. Be what you can be, for the greater glory of … What, exactly?_

Natasha grinds her teeth and lets her mind go still, almost empty. Of all the skills she learned in the Red Room, this is the most valuable: To find – for the moment - the silence within, the place where the horrors can't reach, where ledgers are invisible and where she can do what needs to be done. Is it wrong to be grateful for that gift?

_Deep breath._

She listens for the click to confirm that the data download is complete; when it comes, she removes the device and clenches her fist around it briefly. It will be for others to analyze, but she knows what it contains: Records of human misery. Business transactions_. _No doubt the Loving Church does its taxes; travel in the name of proselytization is deductible, including the road to slavery.

_Just like the Red Room accounted for its expenses to the state, leaving out the costs in human lives._

The downside to Natasha's discovery is that, if this is the nerve centre of the business, the chance that she will find Clint here is exponentially smaller. Too great a risk for his prospective captors. Need to start from scratch. _Where?_

She puts Lucy Edwards' face back on and heads out the way she came, openly and without hesitation – for what would Lucy have to fear? She may have lost her husband, but she basks in the love of the Prophet.

…..

The construction crew Clint had been working with has downed tools, given that daylight is only to be had for another half hour or so; presumably they have all headed for the service (or a shower). Nonetheless, one of the erstwhile carpenters is loitering beside a building right across from the construction site, whittling away at a piece of wood with what looks like excess nervous energy.

The man – Vic Something? – is sitting on top of what looks like a wooden box, except it's too large to be a box, and is attached to one of the smaller buildings. Storm shelter? No. This isn't Dorothy's Kansas. _Root cellar_. She remembers those from rural Russia – places where people store potatoes and beets for the winter.

There's no obvious reason for him to be here now though, at this time. Natasha knows a guard when she sees one. _Bingo_, as Clint would say. Her quick assessment tells her that while Vic has a gun, it's shoved into the back of his trousers. It will take him forever to pull it out while he's sitting down, and that will be _after _he's dropped his knife and whittling stick. _Low-grade minion with delusions of competence._

When he spots her, Vic starts briefly at the unexpected intrusion, but an altogether different look creeps into his eyes almost immediately. He runs them up and down Natasha's body as if he were appraising a cut of meat; the brief appearance of his tongue suggests that he likes what he sees. _Of course he does._

Now, under normal circumstances, Natasha would play up to a man like that, take him halfway down the road he'd love to travel, before becoming a severe disappointment - or worse - to his ambitions. But she is prepared to make an exception for people who deal in human beings for profit. Besides, she has all the data S.H.I.E.L.D. could possibly expect, and she wants her partner back – _now._ She doesn't even bother sashaying as she walks up to him.

"Stop drooling and cut to the chase. Where is my partner?"

Vic, obviously hired for his brawn rather than his brain, is a man of base reactions and baser instincts. Accordingly, he can't help but look down at the door he's sitting on, before sputtering out a perfunctory _no idea what you're talking about, Sunshine_. He doesn't reach for his gun though; women aren't a threat in his experience.

Natasha lashes out with her foot, which connects with the side of Vic's skull with a satisfying _crack_. His neck snaps back and he flies off his perch on the cellar door, unconscious before he hits the ground. The Black Widow stalks over to his prone figure and steps on his neck, sharply and with extreme prejudice. Another crack, and he stays still.

The cellar door is padlocked, but Vic has keys in his pocket. Natasha does a quick 360 before pulling his body into the shaded area, beside the entrance to the root cellar. She finds the right key on the second attempt. The door – more of a lid, really - is solid, but she lifts it off easily, leans it against the wall and peers inside the opening.

There's a wooden chute leading down, dabbed with an unmistakable trace of blood. Not much, but it appears to be fresh. _Clint. _The fading evening light pools at the bottom, not quite enough to illuminate what appears to be a medium-sized room with a dirt floor, but sufficient to show that there is no movement in immediate sight.

"Clint?" Natasha stage whispers into the opening. "You down there? Talk to me."

Her voice is nearly drowned out by a familiar short, guttural scream and a sudden crash from below, followed immediately by two much more high-pitched shrieks.

...

**11. Meets the Damp, Dirty Prison**

Clint's head aches more now; that he's been upright for a bit, he becomes aware of the throbbing pain. He runs his hand through his hair as he cocks his head to listen and it comes back sticky, his fingers dark in the dimming light. _Great. _Not just a goose egg, then; Natasha will doubtless make him go and have stitches as soon as they get back to civilization.

Well, no time for idle musings.

He'd like to assume that whoever is sobbing on the other side of the door isn't under guard, but assumptions can get you killed. In the absence of any other weapons than his hands and feet, it'd be awkward to lose the element of surprise.

And if there's someone up top to hear what he's about to do – well, he'll deal with them, if and when they come down. At the very least, the top opening is at too sharp an angle from the door for anyone (well, _almost_ anyone) to get off a meaningful shot, plus darkness has its advantages.

Just as Clint unleashes a hard roundhouse kick to the centre of the door, he hears a voice (_her_ voice):

"Clint? You down there? Talk to me."

_She's come for him. _

But it's too late, he can't stop what he's unleashed and so he goes through with it all the way, including the short explosive scream that will increase the strength of the punch, and to startle whoever maybe ready for him.

The old door splits and splinters under the force of the sudden onslaught, creating an opening into an adjoining room. Two high-pitched shrieks of surprised terror assault his ears from in front. But Natasha's voice means at least no guards up top. (Anymore.)

Escape just became a much more realistic prospect, plus he's free to talk.

"Not alone down here, Nat," he calls over his shoulder. "Civilians. Prisoners, probably. Get ready for company."

_Leaving whoever is down here is not an option._

With another couple of kicks, he breaks down the remaining boards and enters the room. And knows immediately that what he sees, by the light of a single, bare bulb, will stay with him for a very, very long time.

Two women, girls, really, clinging to each other in terror on a dingy, dirty mattress; he doesn't want to think about the stains. Each of them has a chain around her neck that leads to a drainpipe overhead. They're able to lie down and move, but not far enough to reach the door he has just broken through, nor the one he can see at the other end of the room. They both look emaciated, their eyes huge over taut skin.

It is absolutely clear to Clint who and what these two are: They are the girl he saw earlier that day, if and when she ever decides to voice the word that he thought he could see in her eyes: _No. _

They are the living response to heresy against the Prophet and his world of make-belief; his punishment for the audacity to rip off the mask and seeing Jacob Malone for what he is.

How many others have there been? And … what of those who never said 'No'? Coulson's words echo in his mind, acquire an even more sinister meaning now: _People, in particular w__omen, have been disappearing into that part of Montana for four years now…_

Clint also knows that he must look scary as hell to them, filthy from the ride down the chute, probably bruised, covered with half-dried blood from that gash in his head.

"It's okay," he says, in a voice that is meant to be soothing, but probably fails. Hawkeye on a good day is not exactly the gentle sort, and the pressure has been building inside his skull ever since that scene in the outbuilding. But they need to hear the words, that much he knows.

"I'm here to help."

Clint doesn't say _you're safe,_ or _I'll get you out of here, _or anything of the sort though,because it's too early for that. They're still chained to the wall and he doesn't know what's waiting outside; if there's one thing Clint Barton will not do in the face of someone's hope and trust, it's tell a lie.

Nor does he engage in unnecessary conversation. There are more important things to do. He holds up his hand in a _be-right-back _gesture and quickly steps back into his former prison.

"Nat? Got something for cracking handcuffs?"

"Catch."

Her little tool kit streaks through one of the remaining beams of light. He snatches it out of the air and heads back to where the two women have now separated; one is still shaking from his unexpected and violent arrival, the other is looking over her shoulder at the far door. _Watching out for intruders, chains and all._ Clint is impressed.

"How long you been down here?" he rasps as he works on the locking mechanism of the first set of manacles. The ones belonging to the watcher, the one more likely to be of help in a fight. Triage is not just for healers.

Her voice, when it comes, is as dry as a leaf in autumn, but firm and determined.

"Thirteen days," she says, "give or take. Counting by the light coming from under the door you came through."

There are things she doesn't say; can't say – won't say. But he sees them in her face, and he won't ask. But then she speaks again.

"They stopped bringing us food six days ago. We ran out of water last night. I think they must have forgotten about us."

Her eyes again tell him what her words don't, probably out of kindness to her cellmate: _They decided to starve us to death because we weren't worth the risk anymore. _

Clint's hands still for a moment, clenching into silent fists. Natasha likes to talk about ledgers, dripping in red; Jacob Malone's has just acquired a whole new page. He swallows briefly, regains his focus, and continues his work.

_Snap. _The first cuff cracks open.

"Can you stand? Walk?"

She stands up slowly, shaking with the effort, but gives a determined nod.

"Have to," she whispers to herself. And, "Yes."

Clint touches her shoulder briefly, but addresses them both.

"I assume you two tried to run?"

Both women nod in unison, and he probes a little more while he works, taking care not to let his rage seep into his voice. The second manacle sticks, and he riffles through the tool kit for the collapsible titanium pliers that he knows must be there.

"You think you're the only ones?"

"I don't know," the second woman replies. She, too, is hoarse, her mouth powder dry. From what he can see in the darkness she is beautiful – smooth, ebony skin, huge dark-brown eyes. A prize catch for Malone once, without doubt. She coughs, tries to wet her mouth before continuing, and fails. Her voice is a whisper.

"There may have been others, we found some traces in the room. But they're not … here now. Then we heard a noise a while ago, like something falling. That was you? We never heard anything from that room before."

Natasha's voice echoes through the basement.

"Hurry up down there, Hawkeye!"

"Minute," he shouts back, and focuses back on the second captive's cuff.

The first woman, who has revived considerably in the face of her impending (however improbable) rescue, frowns. Talking is hard with her mouth so dry, but she has to ask.

"_Hawkeye_?"

Of course, she must think it's a name he's taken under the Prophet – if an odd one - and she needs to know where he stands on that.

"Nickname," he explains as he continues working. "_Old_ nickname, nothing galactic about it. Eyesight thing. Real name's Barton. Clint Barton. Yours?"

She straightens her shoulders. _One tough lady,_ Clint decides. She reminds him of Bobbi, and Hill, and Natasha. He likes her already.

"Holly MacArthur." _Her_ name. No one else's, not anymore. He likes that, too. "And this is LaTora. LaTora Morrison."

At this, the second manacle gives a click; LaTora shudders with relief but has trouble standing up. Clint drapes her arm over his shoulder and holds her up without asking.

"Thanks," she whispers, her voice raspy. "I have no idea who you are, or what's happening, but … _thank you_."

"Don't thank me yet," Clint replies. "Let's get out of here first."

When they get to the chute, he notes with approval that Natasha has been busy, having retrieved a coil of rope from the construction site and secured it somewhere. Tree? No matter. His partner knows what she's doing, what's necessary - including how to tie a knot that will hold.

He coils the end around LaTora's waist, pretending not to notice how she flinches at his touch even though it feels like a knife to his gut. His voice as gentle as he can make it under the circumstances, he asks her to wrap the rope around her wrist and grip it with both hands. Clint isn't sure whether she'll have the strength to partly walk up the chute as Natasha pulls, but at least she'll be more stable if she holds onto the rope; he cups his hands and gives her a boost as high up as he can. It takes a bit of work, but she makes it up and out on sheer determination; he can hear Natasha whispering something to her about staying behind the building for now as the rope comes back down.

Holly is next. She sways a little as Clint secures the rope around her waist, but her breathing is deep and even. She reminds him again of Bobbi, always strongest in the face of imminent disaster.

"Guess you two didn't fall for Malone's idea of love and redemption," he says as he secures the rope around her waist.

Holly gives a dry rasp that might have been intended as a contemptuous snarl.

"I wanted to. Lord knows, when I came here, I needed some … _something_. But I also know bullshit when I see it. I grew up around politicians. And I sure didn't need any more of _that_."

_Of course - _the Senator's niece. The real - the _only_ - reason Jacob Malone and his merry men even attracted so much as an investigation. Sometimes a snake does bite its own tail, and sometimes irony isn't such a funny thing at all.

Holly isn't done, though, and clearly she needs to get this out.

"I can't believe I fell for it as long as I did. But it was nice here, at first, and like I said … I really wanted to believe in something. I guess we all did. Or do. _Love in the name of the Prophet. _I was so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. _Stupid._"

The self-loathing in her voice has begun to conquer the dryness, the pain and the fear, and something inside Clint just snaps.

"Don't blame yourself," he grinds out, his sudden vehemence taking the young woman aback slightly. "Don't _ever_ blame yourself when someone lies to you, or breaks your trust like that. That's not on you, or on the ones who still believe. It's on _him._ That's all on Malone and his gang."

"Clint, hurry up down there," Natasha hisses from above. "Company's coming."

_Shit. _

A couple of minutes and some heavy lifting and pulling later, and Holly is out too; Clint bites back the stabbing pain in his head as he climbs up the chute, going up hand-over-hand on the rope.

"About time," Natasha growls at him by way of greeting - never a woman of unnecessary words or sentimentality, his partner. What he likes about her. But she helps keeping LaTora upright and grabs Holly with her free hand.

"Let's get the hell out of here." For Clint's benefit she adds, in brisk strokes, what information he needs. "We've got what we need for Fury. They moved the car, it's in the woods, about five hundred meters. Your bow is under the big bush at the entrance to the parking lot. I thought you might like to have it before we get to the car. Apologies for the location."

The lights of a car and a large van are streaking through the trees from the highway, headed up the long drive and towards the parking area. Where his bow is.

Ah yes, she'd mentioned company.

Malone and his entourage, returning from their most recent field trip. No doubt they used the van to deliver human goods to market in the name of galactic harmony, not to mention cutting lucrative deals with the purveyors of pornographic material in which the lack of enthusiastic participation (not to mention full and informed consent) is a bonus.

Clint's eyes narrow, and he makes a decision.

"You go ahead. Get the girls into cover in the trees, bring 'em up in the car if I don't catch up. I'll go get my bow."

Natasha studies his face for the briefest of moments; he can see her hesitate.

"Clint …"

"What?"

"Be careful. You don't want to go there."

He holds her level gaze with his own.

"Yeah? Go where?"

For the briefest of moments it looks like she might say something else; what she does say is, "You know our orders. No unnecessary use of force."

Funny that, coming from the Black Widow. Clint points his chin in the direction of Vic's body.

"That?"

"Necessary."

"So is getting my bow back."

She nods. _Right._ They understand each other well enough, apparently, although he notices that she doesn't offer him one of her guns. He prefers to think that it's because she believes he won't need it.

"The girls will slow you down. I'll distract the locals for you and meet you at the parking lot. Now _go_!"

One last inscrutable look in his direction and she's gone, an arm around each of the former captives for support, ignoring Holly's protest at leaving him behind. Far too slowly, their figures become shadows, melting into the gathering darkness.

Clint tears his eyes away from their retreating forms and casts a cold look at Vic's body.

_One._

_..._

**12. The Executioner's Face**

Of course, his bow is exactly where the sound of car doors opening and closing echoes through the evening air, together with the sound of voices and a barked laughter. _Shit. _Clint scouts around for something – anything - he can use as a projectile. His eyes fall on the tarp covering the power tools and toolboxes from the construction site. A dozen steps away.

Suddenly, there's a different sound: Steps on a gravel path, approaching from the direction of the men's quarters, headed in his direction. He recognizes the silhouette against the lights from the compound and a waxing moon. Marvin, come to relieve Vic on watch.

"Hey!" Marvin's voice is loud and clear – probably can be heard in the parking lot. "You! How the fuck did you … Don't move, or I'll …"

Whatever the alternative is, Marvin doesn't say, and Clint can't bring himself to care.

He dives and rolls towards the tools, suppressing a groan with a curse. Like he needed a reminder that his ribs and head had been tapped by a two-by-four. Ignoring Marvin who is running towards him now he throws back the tarp. The steel axe head gleams right on top, in what little light remains of the day. Perfect.

Clint grabs the axe, lets his fingers glide down the handle for the briefest of moments until they find the balance point, jumps up, twists and and lets fly. The blade twirls end over end like a lethal whirligig and embeds itself in Marvin's forehead. He falls backwards with the force of the blow.

_Two. _

The surprised noise Marvin makes ends in an inchoate gurgling sound, loud enough to trigger a_ what-the-fuck-was-that?_ from one of Malone's men that carries through the still evening air. Clint triangulates the sound quickly; he has a few seconds.

Marvin has no gun on him; he'd been bluffing. _Damn. _Fucking amateur probably didn't think he'd need a weapon, that all he'd have to do to deal with Paul Edwards was to sit on a root cellar door and swat at mosquitos. Lack of resistance breeds complacency. Back to the toolbox it is.

Clint breathes as steadily as he can, given the pain in his chest. Quick sitrep. Natasha and the two women are close to the tree line. The sound of one of the invite-the-aliens-for-supper songs, in mostly female voices, is coming out of the temple.

Images flash through his mind, tinged in red. Trust and love, sold to the highest bidder. Promises turned to chains.

_Breathe, Barton._

The newcomers – five of them - are fanning out, but all running towards the source of that drowned scream. Towards _him_.

Good.

Too bad staple guns need a pressure hose, and are shit useless at distance. He comes up with a handful of chisels and narrow slot screwdrivers though, plus that yellow-handled nail set he'd used earlier that day. Not bad for balance, any of them – these are quality tools. The sex trade pays well, at least for the pimps.

He keeps three of the tools in his hand, and hooks the rest into the belt loop of his jeans before heading into the construction site, making as much noise as possible. The inside walls are up, although made from plywood only; decent visual cover, if not exactly bulletproof. The window cutouts will be like the arrow slits in one of those medieval fortresses.

_There,_ someone shouts, amid confused _what-the-fuck_s and a _Hey guys, Marv's down! _The purveyors of galactic peace come with the sound of guns sliding from holsters. Maybe some of the guys closest to Malone are pros after all.

A quick look out of one of the window slots, a quick wind-up and flick of the wrist, and one of the so-called Elders has a nail set embedded in his larynx.

_Three. _

He glides back into the interior of the half-finished building; its future as the site of minor motion pictures is now in doubt_. _Someone spits a suppressed curse. Clint presses himself against the wall and awaits developments. He doesn't have to wait long.

"You sure we should go in?" a voice whispers.

"Boss says get him. Besides, if the guy had a gun, he'd have used it by now," another voice answers.

"Maybe he doesn't need a gun? You saw Marvin …"

"Shut up. Let's do this."

The first man enters, a gun in his hand stretched out before him. Clint waits until the second has entered. Let them get in each other's way.

"Hey."

The first man turns towards the voice, a bit faster than Clint expected, but doesn't get the chance to fire his gun before a chisel penetrates his eye socket. He drops like a stone. The second has just enough time to aim his weapon; the last thing he sees is the screwdriver.

_Four and Five. _

Clint harvests their guns; sticks them into the waistband of his jeans and retrieves the bloody tools for reuse. Guns are useful things, but he's always had a thing for silence and in the absence of his bow, the chisels will do nicely.

There's a sound from beside the half-finished building, a muttered curse. Clint ducks out the back window and peers around the corner. Taking cover behind the stack of lumber, he advances on soft feet to the source of the sound. A head, just poking out on the other side.

Chisels are no good against hardened bone, and gunfire will draw the attention of folks still singing the Prophet's praise at the service. He grabs the top plank, pulls it back and punches it into the man's head with as much force as he can muster. It's not enough to knock the guy out, but enough to knock him over. Clint whips around the stack and is on the man in less time than it takes him to recover his wits. Another punch to the head with a shorter piece of wood, and the guy lies still.

_Six_.

"Hands up."

The unmistakable click of a gun safety being disengaged. Clint freezes, assessing the location - other side of the lumber stack, just across, close. He drops backwards to the ground, landing on his forearms and lashes out with both feet. The force of his kick dislodges the top of the stack and kicks half a dozen planks right into the chest of his would-be captor just as he fires his gun. The move disarms the guy and the boards clang against each other as he tries to regain his balance.

Clint is back on his feet and vaults over the stack in a flash; he manages to avoid the mess of boards as he lands, but just barely. His opponent is scrabbling for his gun under one of the four-by-fours; Clint kicks down hard on the board, flicking a vicious smile as the man's arm cracks like a splinter of wood.

"Please?" the man croaks, pain colouring his voice.

"Wrong word," Clint grates back.

_Seven._

He breathes deeply, evenly. The red fog recedes, slowly.

Except …

He replays the last few minutes in his mind. Two carloads' worth, if you subtract Marvin and Vic, assuming the van was used mostly to transport women, one way.

One missing, maybe two. _Malone._

Must still be in the parking lot. Conveniently, that's where Clint's bow is located, and where he plans on meeting his partner. This one he won't wait for.

He advances on the car park in a low crouch and a zigzag motion, waiting for the gunshot that never comes. Somewhere in the distance he can hear a car engine starting, sees lights coming on. _Natasha._

He holds absolutely still for a moment. The singing has stopped, sounds of doors opening across the compound. Someone heard the shot. Chances are they didn't come armed to the service though … that plus 300 meters in between buys what time he needs.

Dropping on his stomach, Clint robs the last few meters towards the bush he's pretty sure Natasha meant. Sure enough, there's the familiar shape. A surge of … something briefly flares up in his gut and the bow and quiver are in his hands. A crouch, and the quiver is on his back, the strap tightened and the familiar tingle of fletching in his fingers.

No armguard, but that's okay; he won't be making any distance shots tonight.

The cars in the parking area are dark, and there are no engines running. Night has fallen as it does in the near-wilderness, quickly and almost completely. Engaging the eyesight that gave him his second name, Clint scans the vehicles for interior movement; there is none.

Still low in his crouch, he moves past the cars, one by one, ignoring the vans and utility vehicles until he comes to one that looks like something suitable to a Prophet's ego. As soon as he approaches he can feel the air change with the heat - recently active engine. _Bingo._

Playing a hunch, he unfolds himself to his full height and pulls open the rear door with a fluid motion before nocking the arrow with his right hand. Sure enough, there's Malone, low in the back seat, fumbling for his gun. Must have decided to hang back when someone mentioned Marvin, heard the gunshot and decided to stay hidden. A real leader, someone to whom to take visiting aliens for sure.

"Decided to wait for your friends?" Clint says conversationally. "Sorry, they won't be coming."

"Edwards? What do you want?" Malone's eyes are fixed on the tip of the arrow now pointed at his face.

"Peace," Clint says simply, and lets fly.


	6. Part 6

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The end of the road. This was not an easy story to write, for many reasons. I would like to thank all those of you who took the time to leave favourite/follow pings, PMs or reviews; they were more greatly appreciated than you can possibly fathom. Special hugs are due to **Kylen** for test-driving this chapter.

* * *

**PART VI**

**13. ****Where Have You Been?**

Coulson enters the briefing room, trailing three analysts. One by one, more agents file in; all but the analysts are headed for the back row, reserved for those who have no direct role in a briefing and ostensibly are just there to soak up lessons learned. The room fills up quickly.

It's not uncommon to get such numbers for a Delta Team mission; the fascination at S.H.I.E.L.D. with all things Barton and Romanoff borders on the fannish (although Phil knows he is hardly one to talk, given what he just dropped on a Captain America trading card). Even with that, though, the number of walk-ins is unusual; apparently, news out of Montana spread quickly, and everyone wants to hear just what caused Barton to go off the rails so badly.

Even Sitwell is here, his bald head reflecting the neon light. He and Evans probably have a bet going on just how much trouble Hawkeye's going to be in this time. (Their usual practice is to offer him a post-payout cut in the form of a few beers.) Probably not a good idea this time; Phil wonders idly whether he should warn them.

Barton is already in the room, while Romanoff is nowhere in sight. The team seems … unusually out of synch. They'd hardly talked during retrieval, staring out of the QuinJet's windows on opposing sides, as if mining the clouds for answers to unspoken questions. The only time Barton opened his mouth was to inquire about the status of the two civilians they'd brought out with them, and to swear at the medic who put eight stitches in his scalp.

And now, the archer is pacing up and down the briefing room like a caged tiger. Not surprising, perhaps: Last time Phil looked Fury was on a tear, and Agent Barton was at the epicenter of his wrath. Fact is, the body count in Montana is eight more than Fury had planned for. Maybe that's what's drawing the unusual crowd, people enjoying the spectacle of a thermonuclear explosion, not directed at them?

The three analysts are trying their best to stay out of Barton's way as they squeeze past him, giving him sideways glances that range from barely concealed fear (Wang) and admiration bordering on the fan-girlish (Patel), to something that can only be described as horrified respect (Schmidt). Eventually, they all manage to take their seats at the end of the table; they have brought their own specialized weaponry – encrypted USB sticks.

While they're fiddling with the equipment, Romanoff sweeps into the room, just ahead of Hill.

"Director Fury is delayed," Hill says in that clipped way of hers. "He asked us to start without him. I'll summarize for him later."

She nods to Romanoff.

"Agent, please proceed."

Barton stops pacing, although his focus seems to be his fingernails. Phil, for once, can't even tell whether he's listening. Barton's face has gone as still as his body, and as hard to read.

With the sparest, briskest of strokes, Romanoff outlines the mission - from its original parameters, infiltration and on-the-ground observations, to Clint's disappearance, her decision to break cover and search for him, and the tech she used to obtain Malone's data base. She doesn't skip a beat as she includes her partner's side of the story; everyone knows Hawkeye hates public speaking. Nine times out of ten he just nods along to her recitation of facts. Not today.

"… And then I took the two civilians to the vehicle, while Agent Barton kept us free from hostile engagement. We requested medevac and headed towards the Cut Bank airfield, stopping at a General Store en route for water and food," she concludes her narration. "There was no pursuit."

The long, silent glance Barton shoots her during the rather dry description of his … _activities_, and the implication of just why Malone's gang may not have had the nerve to go after them, is not lost on Phil. Neither is the palpable disappointment of people who'd been expecting something a lot more colourful. (Two of the junior agents had been whistling the Home Hardware jingle when he and Barton walked by earlier that day. Phil had busted their chops, of course, but the walls at S.H.I.E.L.D. have both ears _and_ recording devices, and that particular genie will likely remain forever uncorked.)

Hill ignores it all and gives the nod to the analysts. It's been twenty or so hours since Romanoff brought back the data file and the FBI descended on the compound, and there is information Delta Team is not aware of; even Barton shows interest underneath his scowl.

Wang confirms what they had suspected: that Malone and his gang had, in fact, created their optimistic little cult to recruit what amounted to volunteer sex workers, from among women desperate to escape difficult life situations. The clear benefit of this approach to exploitation was to provide an almost foolproof get-out-of-jail-free card for its operators, based either on the victims' express consent, or on the fact that by the time lawyers would finish arguing about _consent obtained under false pretenses_, Malone would be celebrating his acquittal on the grounds of reasonable doubt. Compound life during the early stages also provided a second source of income, pay-per-view videos.

Women who resisted Malone's schemes early were simply called out as 'insufficiently devout' and asked to leave the compound. (The records in the data file were surprisingly comprehensive.) The gang triaged well; very few apparently left before the probationary period was up, and those who did were none the wiser as to what the "Prophet's love" consisted of in practice.

"Those who tried to run after they realized they'd be pimped out, disappeared. They were probably killed – but, based on what we learned from the two survivors, not until _after_ Malone offered them to a … very specialized clientele for a period of time. We suspect the new video studio they were setting up may have been part of that, and worse."

Wang's voice cracks a little as she continues.

"It's very fortunate that … we were able to disrupt their operations before they got there."

The remark earns her a stern gaze from Hill – editorial comments are usually frowned upon in debriefs – but the Deputy doesn't say anything. Schmidt, the law enforcement liaison, takes up the thread.

"The fact that Holly MacArthur and LaTora Morrison came out of that basement alive provided us with the basis for the initial round of arrest warrants. We don't know if there were others; they may have been the first. Malone seemed to be getting more reckless."

"But did you find any actual evidence of brainwashing in all of this?" Carter asks the question that is on many people's lips.

Patel, the sociologist, shrugs. "Brainwashing can be in the eye of the beholder," she says, ignoring the flash of … something in Romanoff's eyes.

"The cult seems to have largely relied on what had been done to these women's minds before they ever got there," she adds. "These were people who'd been led to believe they weren't worth anything, that their lives weren't worth anything. They were given an important role in the cult, and a new identity that they told themselves was better. That's why so few of them ever complained."

"And why it couldn't have worked on _them_," Benson whispers, just a fraction too loud in a sudden moment of silence. "They both think they're pretty hot shit."

Barton's hearing isn't anywhere nearly as good as his eyesight, or else he has chosen to ignore the remark; Romanoff, however, fixes the offender with a carefully calibrated icy glare. Phil makes a mental note to make a small adjustment to the sparring schedule: Let Benson figure out whether Black Widow is as good as he thinks she thinks she is.

Patel wraps up as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"Some of the women interviewed so far refuse to believe that they've been living a lie. All are receiving counseling, and reintegration assistance if they request."

Schmidt, the man from law enforcement liaison, clears his throat for the final stretch.

"Arrests have been made in eleven states and two Canadian provinces. Calgary was the hub for onward trafficking, including the Persian Gulf. Interpol's I-24/7 system is engaged, Red Notices are out on twenty-seven suspects. We are also investigating the people who paid for the various … services Malone's outfit provided, and have removed all pay-per-view video footage from the internet."

"What I don't get," Miyazaki says when Q&A formally starts, "is why they put all this planning into the sex trade. I mean, you set up a religion like that, go to all that effort to create this kind of smokescreen, why not go for … oh, I dunno. World domination?"

Hill gives him a measured look. "Read your criminology textbooks again, Agent," she says. "Even the most elaborate criminal schemes can usually be reduced to a desire to have the nicest car. Money or power is what it's usually about."

Phil feels compelled to add, "Never underestimate the banality of evil." Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Barton's scowl deepen.

Sitwell raises his hand.

"What about Barton and Romanoff? How'd they even get in as a couple? Wasn't that totally against the gang's _modus operandi_?"

Phil wards off Patel in order to answer the question himself.

"As noted, Malone got overconfident and allowed his triage rigour to slip. He decided he could make even more money off women of unusual physical beauty, especially in the video business. Apparently, he was intrigued by Agent Romanoff's photograph. He probably never intended for _Mr._ Edwards to survive the first week. Agent Barton was lucky that some of the gang's rank and file weren't quite initiated to the group's dirty work yet. That was apparently left to the inner circle."

Before anyone else can ask another question though the door opens and Nick Fury strides in, his black leather coat billowing behind him.

"That's it, folks, show and tell is over," he barks. "Everybody out, except Hill, Coulson, Barton and Romanoff."

There is momentary silence as people realize that their desire for major fireworks is about to be thwarted; one by one they melt from the room to the sound of scraping chairs and trudging feet. Sitwell lingers for a moment, casting a sympathetic look in Barton's direction. His audacity earns him a snarl from Fury.

"That damn well means you, too, Sitwell. _Out._"

Sitwell doesn't have to be asked again, and leaves an ounce or so of dignity behind as he crashes into a chair in his haste to escape. Fury glares after him until the door has closed again. He doesn't bother to sit down.

Phil notes that Barton still hasn't taken a seat either: obviously, the archer prefers to meet his fate standing up. He has released the back of his chair from his iron grip and straightened into what can only be described as military attention – shoulders back, legs slightly apart. Fury's eye fixes on him with the intensity of a searchlight, although what comes out surprises even Phil.

"What the _hell _were you thinking, Barton? _Were_ you even thinking? I'm about to have to talk to the Governor of Montana, about the sudden mortality spike in his hinterland. What the _fuck_ am I supposed to tell the guy? Enlighten me, if you will."

Barton glares back and says nothing. Maybe he's not interested in defending himself, since what Fury said wasn't exactly a reprimand? No, that's not it, Phil is convinced; he's simply not interested in offering obfuscation. Nothing new there, then. Phil decides to jump in before the silence can be added to the growing list of Barton's offences against political gamesmanship.

"Statistically, sir, construction sites are among the highest sources of work place injuries and accidental deaths."

Fury's ire is momentarily deflected from Barton; his laser gaze burns a hole in Phil's forehead. _Ouch._

"Nice try, Coulson. Doesn't explain the arrow your so-called _asset_ used on Malone, though."

"I used a tranquilizer head, sir. Instructions to minimize use of force, you will recall."

So Barton has finally decided to speak, if not in a particularly constructive way. He has abandoned his straight-backed posture and is now leaning against the wall, arms crossed defiantly in front of his chest. It works; Fury zeros back in on him with the unerring aim of a heat-seeking missile, allowing Phil to resume his usual air of bland efficiency.

"Doesn't make much difference when it ends up in an eye socket, does it, Barton."

"I'll be sure to remember that next time, sir."

Barton's lack of repentance is not helpful, nor is Romanoff's smirk at her partner's misplaced sense of humour. Hill still hasn't said anything; she doesn't look like she's going to, but is keenly observing both agents. Fury is not impressed.

"You're lucky if there _is_ a next time, Barton," Fury growls. "Fortunately for you, Senator Eversen is grateful to have his niece back alive, and has put in a good word for you with the Council. Still leaves me to clean up the mess with the Governor."

Hill clears her throat.

"If it helps, sir, I had Accounting do a quick analysis of the Governor's campaign contributions. It turns out that Jacob Malone and the Loving Church of Galactic Peace are on the record with donations of $100,000 each. Malone also donated to the county sheriff's campaign, as well as to all local members of the elected judiciary and the State House of Representatives."

Barton's head flies up at that and he stares at Hill thoughtfully. She ignores him, keeping her cool blue gaze focused on the Director.

"Whether or not those contributions motivated the failure to investigate reported disappearances is, of course, a matter of speculation. Your EA has the files on her desk, sir, should you wish to review them before you call Governor Morgan."

Fury's teeth make an appearance at that, and his eye narrows. It is not a reassuring look, although Phil notes that it no longer appears to be directed at anyone inside the briefing room.

"I'm glad _someone_ around thinks with something other than their gonads. Fuck, I hate politics."

He turns to Barton.

"Don't think for a moment that you're off the hook, Agent Barton. Council wants _some_ S.H.I.E.L.D.-coloured blood for that little rampage, and it might as well be yours. You're suspended from active duty for a month. With pay, in case you care. Now, I have a phone call to make. Hill, with me."

And with that, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. sweeps out of the room; his Deputy follows with her usual regal stride, leaving Phil and his two star assets silent in their wake.

"Well," Phil decides to break the silence. "That went … better than I expected."

"Guess I'm free to go then."

Barton shoves himself off the wall he'd been leaning against and heads for the door, casting a brief look at Romanoff as he brushes past her.

She makes as if to follow him, but it's only a half-hearted attempt that Phil recognizes for what it is: prevarication. Not something you see every day from the Black Widow.

"Something bothering you?"

She shrugs, but holds his eyes with her own.

"Let me guess. Barton."

This time she nods.

"You're wondering why he went off the way he did, aren't you?"

She nods again, obviously unwilling to give voice to her questions. Phil could call her out, but he can tell that this would be counter-productive, and so he refrains. She does, however, speak before he finds the need to say something else.

"This wasn't like Clint. He almost didn't get into the car. He wanted to go back into the compound to …"

_Kill the rest? _She doesn't finish the sentence.

"And this surprises you why?"

Her head shoots up at the unexpectedly sharp tone in his voice.

"You may be operating under a mistaken impression, Agent. The fact that Barton spared your life, in what most of us considered at the time to be an act of misconceived knight errantry, doesn't give him a shining armour. You and he are fundamentally the same - no more, no less virtuous than the other. The only difference between you and him is that his triggers aren't conditioned."

She doesn't say anything in response, and Phil doesn't elaborate; to do so would be a form of betrayal, and Clint Barton has had enough of those. His truths are his to share, if and when he chooses to do so.

**14. Hard Rain**

It takes her nearly three days to find him.

Well, actually, that's not quite true. It takes her two days to _decide_ to find him. She still doesn't know why she thinks she should go after him, but she does.

Once she does make the decision, it takes all of about an hour to track him down, via his apparently oblivious use of his personal Mastercard, with his precise location confirmed by a quick hack job into the GPS in his S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue phone. Add to that the time it takes to throw some clothes in a bag, ask Hill for leave and an agency car and to drive to the coast – well, it's almost three days.

The drive to the Maine coast is a long one, almost ten hours by the time she makes a couple of stops to gas up the car and refuel her body (an accelerated metabolism has its disadvantage), and procure some supplies. The coordinates show him on the coast, and she's guessing it's a place that isn't close to a shopping mall.

She mostly tries to blank out her mind while she drives, ignoring all but her fellow travellers and the bends in the road. But there are times when unbidden thoughts well up to the surface.

_The pleasure of feeling living branches bend under her fingers. Whispered confidences about lives left behind. Hesitant smiles that follow the words, once released. Droplets of water, shaping a rainbow._

She grips the steering wheel a little tighter as she drives past the sign on the highway: "Welcome To Maine. The Way Life Should Be_._"

The cottage is perched on a rocky promontory right by the sea, surrounded on three sides by tall firs – quite unlike the urban haunts people normally associate with Clint Barton. She suspects that it's the sea that drew him, the wide, open, solitary space where he can breathe.

When she finds him, he's sitting on the wraparound porch of what looks like a deliberately rustic-looking, but eminently comfortable place. Clint spends no money on _things_, but when it comes to accommodations, he's passed way too much time in S.H.I.E.L.D.-rented hellholes to go for second-rate on his own dime. The two-seater swing chair he's sitting in is kicked back against the wall and his feet are on the railing, a can of beer in one hand; the chair swings lazily back and forth as he stretches and flexes his legs. By all appearances he's lost in thought, if not downright brooding.

He notices her arrival, of course, probably has known someone was coming for a while (tires on gravel are hard to miss). The fact that he hasn't made a move for a weapon of some sort tells her that he must have guessed it was her, despite the unmarked car. How, she has no idea. Sure, she's come to his apartment any number of times, even unannounced, and he to her quarters on the carrier - but they've never followed each other this far. He should not have expected her.

"Hey," he says by way of greeting, lifting his beer a little in her direction in a kind of Clint-salute, before taking a sip.

"Hey yourself," Natasha feels compelled to reply. "Nice place. Yours?"

Clint raises an eyebrow, but doesn't dignify the rhetorical question with an actual answer. Instead, he bounces his chair upright and asks whether she's eaten yet. When she shakes her head, he heads into the house, obviously expecting her to follow. She drops her duffle in the unused bedroom (Clint has made his bed – surprise! – but his bow is on it, so it's easy to tell which one is his) and takes the bag of supplies and wine, which she'd picked up in a general store along the last stretch of county road, to the kitchenette.

Dinner, it turns out, is a rabbit that made the fatal mistake of hopping into Clint's field of vision while he was tightening his bowstring. Apparently, as with most American males, his reluctance to engage in the kitchen evaporates in the face of an open flame. The thing smells pretty good, turning on the spit of the gas barbecue at the back of the house. He even managed to wrap a couple of potatoes in tin foil and throw them on the grill.

It's while she's opening the wine – it might as well breathe in the glass while they wait for the rabbit to be done - that Natasha realizes something: the table had already been set for two. Well, such as it is; it has two plates and two sets of cutlery on it. He'd been expecting her. How?

_Of course_. Credit card. S.H.I.E.L.D. phone. He might as well have laid out a trail of breadcrumbs for her to find. Clint has obviously noticed her drawing conclusions, and shrugs.

"Figured you'd find me," he says. "If you wanted to, that is."

"What made you think I'd want to?"

The words leave her mouth before she can think about them, before she can bite them back. She doesn't normally talk without thinking. Why now?

Clint fixes his disconcerting blue-green stare on her.

"I didn't," he says carefully. "I was just …"

Natasha doesn't really want him to answer a question she hadn't really meant to ask, and reaches for distraction in the form of her wine glass. It's distinctly mediocre, and she grimaces a little.

"It's okay. I'm here now. This wine sucks."

Clint quirks a grateful little smile and takes a swallow of his own.

"Yep," he says. "It does. But it's the thought that counts. Besides, it beats that rotgut shit you made us drink in Kaliningrad."

"That was vodka, not wine, Clint. Potatoes, not grapes. There's no comparison."

"Yeah, I know. Vodka is _supposed_ to eat your stomach lining, make sure the bugs in what passes for local food can't find a place to burrow into."

The simple meal is surprisingly good, even though there's no salad. Not a green leaf man, Clint Barton; she passes on his invitation to pick herself some dandelion leaves and makes a mental note to pick up some vegetables next time she gets near a store.

The evening passes quickly in their usual mixture of silence and banter, and they end up passing the second bottle of wine back and forth on the porch. If Clint wants to know why she followed him here, he doesn't ask, and Natasha offers no explanation. Truth is, she doesn't know herself – or doesn't want to. The best she can figure out, it's got to do with both of them, and just being here feels right.

Natasha falls asleep surprisingly quickly but wakes up early, half expecting to hear a bell playing the so-called Prophet's tune. What she hears instead is the sound of rain pattering on the wooden roof, and the unmistakable _thwack_ of arrows hitting a wooden target.

She throws on a hoody and a pair of sweat pants – always elegant, the Black Widow, except when she doesn't need to be – and pads out onto the porch in bare feet. Sure enough, there's Clint, methodically pounding arrows into a big fir tree at the edge of the clearing, a straight line down, without any doubt precise enough to withstand measurement with a ruler.

He reaches over his back into his quiver again and again, lost in a rhythm all his own, seemingly oblivious to the pouring rain. She knows that when his quiver is empty, he'll head over to the tree to retrieve his arrows; he will repeat the exercise until his fingers bleed. She's seen him do it before, on the range, although never with this much cold determination and never before with an inkling as to the _why_.

_Thwack._

"No need for you to stand here and watch," he grates out. Of course, he's known she was there from the moment she stepped on the porch.

"What if I want to?"

_Thwack._

"Why would you? Nothing to see."

_Thwack. _

Hawkeye doing what he does best is always something to see, but that's not a thought she intends to examine too closely.

"Making sure you're okay." _Where did that come from?_

He doesn't skip a beat. Draw, nock, _thwack._

"I'll be fine. In a few days."

Natasha purses her lips and returns to her room to retrieve some of the prints she had made at Headquarters, together with a box of thumbtacks she'd taken from supplies. By the time she's put on shoes and comes back out, all the arrows are back in his quiver and he looks ready to start his routine again.

"Here," she says, "I brought you something that may help speed up the process."

"Process?"

"Leveling out. What you're doing."

Clint gives her a questioning look; it's obvious he hasn't heard that term before, even if he seems sufficiently familiar with the concept to have taken himself and his bow to the edge of civilization to do just that. (She won't tell him about the isolation cells the Red Room used for the same purpose.)

He watches her pin a row of portraits of Jacob Malone to the tree in silence; she feels just a little smug when his eyebrows shoot up in realization. His facial expression doesn't change, but there's a little gleam of humour in his eyes. He doesn't bother to wait until she's stepped aside before drilling an arrow through the paper Prophet's eye socket.

_Thwack._

"That felt good. Got any more of those?"

His voice is a little hoarse, but steady, as he readies another arrow.

The paper gets soggy pretty quickly in the pouring rain, but Natasha manages to peel off a couple dozen pages or so, one after the other, and pin them to the tree before her little stack turns into pulp and she can't separate the sheets anymore. The displaced air from Clint's arrows caresses her face each time she steps back; she can hear him mutter under his breath as he lets fly - curses, imprecations, incantations, it's hard to tell and it doesn't really matter.

Each one of the arrows unerringly finds a printed eye socket, targets so impossibly small that Clint shouldn't be able to see them from where he is standing. But he is Hawkeye, he sees what he sees, and she has long since stopped wondering whether his accuracy is a fluke. It is what it is.

_He is what he is. _

Maybe eventually she will figure out what moved her to come here to Maine - to help her partner get rid of whatever caught temporary hold of his soul, without adding to the red in his ledger. For now, the singing of Clint's bowstring, the _thwack_ of arrows drilling into the bark, the steady drops of water on leaves – it all blends into a near hypnotic rhythm, a soundtrack for her own thoughts as she stands there in the rain.

Until suddenly the sounds cease, and she becomes aware of a solid, warm presence beside her.

"Thanks," he says, not quite smiling, but … better, it seems. _Breathing. _ "I needed that. I … Yeah."

"Okay?" She searches his face.

Clint shrugs. "For now, anyway. Some shit won't go away quite that easy. Maybe one of these days I should follow Coulson's advice."

He doesn't say what _Coulson's advice_ may have consisted of, and she doesn't ask; it's pretty obvious, as is the fact that he'll probably never take it. If Clint Barton hates medics, there is a special circle of hell reserved in his personal theology for psychologists.

"You?" he asks, with no particular inflection in his voice.

This seems like a good time to pull the hoody over her head – her hair is already plastered against her scalp, water running down her neck – and to clutch the soggy shreds of paper against her chest. She has nothing to say; she's not, after all, the one who drove hundreds of miles to hide out in a cabin by the sea to exorcise her demons.

"I'm fine. A bit wet, but fine. Thanks."

He studies her with those disconcerting blue-green eyes of his (whoever claimed that Clint Barton has only one facial expression – _intense _– has never looked into his eyes).

"Good to hear."

He might just as well have said "Bullshit."

But the moment for conversation seems to have passed, and for that she is grateful.

The day, as is often the case by the seaside, changes quickly. By mid-morning the sun comes out and Clint heads for the sea, where he spends far more time than she would have considered reasonable in the waves, swimming with sure strokes. Natasha shakes her head, even if the exercise has provided her with a new appreciation of her partner's upper body. She knows how to swim, of course – it's a survival requirement – but it has never occurred to her to do it for fun, and she tells him so when he comes out. He makes no response, just frowns at her thoughtfully.

"No one," he remarks conversationally over another bottle of wine later that night, "should ever be permitted to abuse people's trust. And to turn that trust into profit for him- or herself. _No one._"

She knows better than to think that this is a simple statement from out of nowhere, but it is one that she can't really argue with and so she doesn't. Clint, however, seems to have been better for having made it out loud. He seems less … coiled somehow, afterwards. It doesn't take her long to appreciate that the statement was also a gift, and between those two observations, she comes to a decision.

She doesn't act on it until the next evening though, when the coastal rain has started pounding again and Clint serves up an improvised meal of taco chips, drenched in salsa from a jar and topped with strips off a hunk of cheese, two beers apiece on the side. ("Nachos à la Barton. Try it; you'll like it. Trust me!")

"Malone's outfit," she says, and watches Clint's hand pause over the bowl of soggy nachos. He is instantly on alert, and his hand is perfectly still as it continues its journey to the chips. Like he is zeroing in on a target.

"Yes?"

"Do you think they could have had an effect?"

"On you?" he asks carefully. She doesn't nod, just shrugs – just like he always does, and pulls her legs up on the chair. "I don't see how."

"There were things there that I … enjoyed," she says, trying to ignore the defensive tone in her voice.

"Like?"

She takes a deep breath.

"Gardening."

There. It's out.

"And … listening to the others. Looking after things. Caring. Playing with water."

Clint seems genuinely non-plussed, and frowns a little, as if to say _and this is a bad thing why? _

"What does any of that have to do with Malone?"

"I've never done those things before. Or enjoyed doing them. That's not who I am. I'm just …" She hugs her knees more tightly as she watches the understanding dawn in his eyes. "A killer."

Clint Barton is as straightforward as his arrows, and about as diplomatic as a Sherman tank. So this time he says it out loud:

"Bullshit."

But then he explains, before she can challenge him on daring to question what she knows to be true.

"You didn't just exchange one set of brainwashing for another, if that's what you're thinking. You're just … starting to be you. _Finally._"

"And what is that?"

He's looking for words.

"You are what you are, and that's a hell of a lot more than the Black Widow. And it has nothing to do with Malone. You … care for stuff. People. Those kids in Tbilisi. The girls we rescued. That's who you are, Natasha. No one's giving that to you, or forcing it on you. You're just taking it back."

His gaze into her eyes is as open and honest as she has ever seen.

"And in case you're wondering, you've been doing a damn good job _not killing_ me."

…..

They spend the next two weeks – until Natasha decides she really needs to get back to work – in that cottage, only going into the little town nearby for supplies every other day.

She watches the girl in the general store put the moves on Clint in a rather unsubtle way and Natasha half expects him to go back out that night, but he doesn't. The one time he does head off on his own he comes back in time for dinner, with two new things.

The first is a plant. He calls it a _spider plant;_ it's for her desk on the helicarrier, he tells her, and that the clerk in the hardware store says they grow quite big, and will have lots of babies if you water them regularly.

"Babies?"

He ignores her.

"It also creates oxygen. It's good for you."

He makes her swear by Peter the Great and the Brothers Karamazov that she'll ask Coulson or Doreen to look after it when they're on mission. (She does, and will.)

The second thing he brings is a simple black bathing suit that says "Speedo" on the front. How he figured out her size she doesn't want to know, preferring to chalk it up to his training as an observer.

Swimming, when you're not put through a drowning exercise by the Red Room, actually turns out to be rather enjoyable (even if the waters of the Atlantic aren't exactly warm). Clint is a much more practiced swimmer than she is, but she discovers while they're floating on their backs looking at seagulls that she is more buoyant than he is, with his solid muscle mass. She teases him for the rest of the afternoon about being dense, stopping only when he chucks a pinecone at her head.

The evenings they tend to spend sitting in that swing chair on the porch. Sometimes they talk. He tells her of Barney, the Swordsman and the circus, all the times he thought he'd been given something of value – trust, love, a home, someone who'd have his back - only to discover it was all a lie.

Natasha (once) talks of the price the Red Room exacted if you showed yourself to care for someone, or something. She doesn't go into details, but he nods his understanding as he sees her staring at her hands. He takes them into his own, rubbing whatever she sees there off with slow circles of his thumb.

But more often than not, they just sit in silence, side by side, watching the sun setting over the sea and the falling dark. The night before she leaves there's a chill in the air; he puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her close when she starts to shiver, and she allows herself to fall back against his warmth.

Neither of them comments on the endless ribbon of stars that blazes in a velvet-black sky.

* * *

END NOTE:

Sometimes, you may have noticed, bits of reality drift into my fics. I can't help it; it's how I'm wired. The "Embassy for Outer Space" is loosely based on a booklet, given to me by the pleasant young acolyte of a would-be prophet named Raël. The latter preached the benefits of free love while he and his people awaited alien arrivals. All other similarities are incidental.

And while there are far too many (quasi) religious groups that seem to be operating primarily for the enrichment of their leadership, any connection between such groups, commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking is entirely a matter of my own invention.


End file.
